Florence

Mikael spent much of his childhood as an Anglo-Catholic chorister and altarboy and dual British/Finnish nationality led to him to serve in the Finnish Navy in his early twenties. This exposure to ritual and ceremonial has left a strong impression on his working practice as a sculptor. He draws on his upbringing and experiences, making links between religion and the military and the hypocrisies that often lie therin. His works subvert the iconography of the public monument. Bastardisations of familiar objects initially strike the viewer as playful, irreverent pieces. But on closer inspection they reveal more unsettling meanings. The noble posture and impressive symbolism that characterises public sculpture is examined, exposed and challenged, producing a bizarre new aspect. Trained as a traditional figurative sculptor and mouldmaker at Wimbledon School of Art. Today he seeks new relevance in seemingly outmoded sculptural techniques. Mikael lives and works in London. Resin casting is a method of plastic casting where a mold is filled with a liquid synthetic resin, which then hardens. It is primarily used for small-scale production like industrial prototypes and dentistry. It can be done by amateur hobbyists with little initial investment, and has been appropriated for the production of collectible toys, models and figures, as well as small-scale jewelry production. The synthetic resin for such processes is a monomer for making a plastic thermosetting polymer. During the setting process, the liquid monomer polymerizes into the polymer, thereby hardening into a solid.