Päivikki Alaräihä: May

Päivikki Alaräihä has given her exhibition the title May. With a similarly fresh and straightforward, though ambiguous, connection that links the exhibition to its month in the calendar, the works place themselves in an active relationship with the exhibition venue and its surrounding urban space.

The artist’s subtle and frugal visual idiom is precise and light; her paintings are made of dozens of thin layers of paint. Their simple compositions are based on rectangle motifs and a restrained world of colour. When the contrasts of the light fields of colour are made as small as possible, the boundary between the surfaces is blurred, wavering as if refusing to surrender to the viewer’s gaze. Alaräihä is interested in how works of art are viewed when they contain truly little to be seen. Alongside their subtle and reduced form of expression, the works have an active relationship with the exhibition space and the other pieces on show, commenting in numerous ways on the properties of the space and the works there.