Information Bank

Information Bank

Maria Teplykh

I was born in 1985 in Leningrad (nowadays Saint Petersburg), Russia. Moved to Finland in 2009. Currently I reside in Espoo. I have 3 Master degrees, but unfortunately none of them is in the field of arts. I attended art school during my school years and various art courses during the rest of my life. I am a mental health awareness sculptor, ikebana artist, jewellery maker and one of Helsinki International Artists’ Association ry (HIAA) board members. I am very involved in helping people deal with depression and other crises in life. I have been organising and facilitating discussion-oriented depression support group meetings for over 5 years. Therefore, in my art I try to express difficult topics touching the life of my clients and myself, for example, depression, loss, psychological abuse, narcissism, psychosis, depersonalisation, etc. In my art I also try to grasp the difference between how we look on the outside and what is going on inside our heads. It is a well-known fact that depressed people quite often don’t look depressed to unprofessional eye, and sometimes even to professional eye. It would seem that visual art is capable of only showing what we are on the outside. Or is it? Can we somehow show the destruction happening inside us by the means of visual art? - is one of the questions I try to answer with my works.

Visual arts

Sculpture

caucasian female wearing glasses background of artificial flowers

Region

Helsinki Other capital city area

Communication language

Finnish English Russian

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