Mikko Ramsi
Vantaa (1941)
Skillful sculptures and decorative objects made of metal
Mikko Ramsi is self-taught both as a metalworker and as an artist. He is especially known for elaborate metal sculptures and decorative objects. He started making metal works at the age of 15, but his artistic expression began to develop later in the 70s. Ramsi’s works are created using complex techniques, such as forging, pressing, pressing and welding. The subjects of Ramsi’s works are often nature and animals. During his long career, the skilled metalworker has done a lot of elaborate custom work for private people and also for public places. There are also demanding restoration and repair works.
Art comes alive in a hobby space built in Vantaa
Mikko Ramsi was born in Saarijärvi, but the family moved to Vallila in Helsinki during the winter war and later after the war to Paloheina, a newly completed front-line men’s house. Ramsi lived in Paloheinä for 28 years, until in the mid-1970s he built his own house in Vierumäki, Vantaa. The house was built from Pelkosenniemi’s Lapland hong, and a workshop for metalwork was completed in its courtyard building. Some of the tools used there are built by Rams himself, which speaks of his versatile skills as a metalworker.
Mikko Ramsi started doing metal work at the age of 15 at Mako’s pump factory in Helsinki, from where he moved to Vallila’s Sisu factory to turn various car parts with a revolver lathe. At the end of the 60s, the man with metalworking skills found a job he liked in the rehabilitation side of Helsinki’s sports department, where he enjoyed himself for the next 37 years until his retirement. The varied tasks included, for example, making and renovating football and rink goals, snow plows, and sports field fences. In the 70’s, inspired by the welding course he took while working, various decorative objects began to appear in the caches of the new home’s hobby spaces, which led to the development of Ramsi’s artistic expression. The first works of art were single flowers, silhouettes and reliefs with animal motifs. Little by little, the sculptures also took on three-dimensional shapes. Over the years, mainly from grid metal, but also from copper and iron, wonderful fish, birds, turtles, bears, butterflies and glass decorative objects have been produced by forging, pressing, pressing and welding.
During his long career, Ramsi has done a lot of elaborate commissioned work for private people and public places. There are also demanding restoration and repair works. A few selections from these commissioned works are e.g. The bell tower of Helsinki’s Aikatalo, several crosses of monasteries in Estonia, a large sculpture in front of the Kauhajoki Bears’ home hall where two bear cubs are climbing the branches of a large tree while the mother bear is watching the games at the foot of the tree. In Inari, the Sámi Culture Center in Sajos, the numerous steel plates of Outi Pieski’s wall relief “EATNU, EADNI, EANA – VIRTA, EMO, MAA” are also made by Rams.
