As a self-taught artist, Männikkö counts few stylistic precedents or influences, and though his interest in the residue of everyday life is the foundation of his image making, his formalism lends itself to metaphoric or existential modes of interpretation. Time Flies includes a range of images – abandoned cars, cemetery portrait sculpture, discarded family photographs - whose subjects bear witness to the passage of time and serve as a poignant meditation on the inevitable collapse of all material things, human or inanimate. Esko Männikköʼs gallery and museum installations place his photographs abutted together to form a single line through the exhibition space, in a variety of ornate, patinaed frames carefully selected to complement the details or subjects of his images.
|