The Pori-based creator featured in this exhibition is graphic artist Juuso Leppälä. His works are dominated by black outlines and bear a resemblance to cartoons. In recent years he has mainly worked on continuing series that keep evolving all the time. Often quite small in size, the works offer a wealth of detail and joyful discoveries. They are evocative of stories, pain points and statements, both personal and echoing wider social and environmental concerns.
The Runner’s Hallucinations series offers hybrid creations that merge real life situations with scenes from a journey into a world of hallucination and lucid dreaming. The Stalking series is a fictional story about a character who portrays people and places but never shows his own face. The world where the series takes place is a mix of the 1980s and the present.
Juuso Leppälä most often draws on a primed plywood with a pen dipped in ink, but he also uses other mediums, such as diluted ink or acrylic on surfaces, as well as pastels and watercolours. Sometimes he also creates prints with a variety of methods.
The exhibition features works from the Stalking and the Runner’s Hallucinations series. Some of the works on show belong to the collections The City of Pori Art Collection. The most recent works are on loan from the artist.
Juuso Leppälä (b. 1981 Viljakkala, Ylöjärvi) studied at the Kankaanpää School of Fine Arts of the Satakunta University of Applied Sciences 2001–2005. He belongs to Pori-based artists’ associations Porin Taidegraafikot ry., Nyte ry and T.E.H.D.A.S. ry. Leppälä’s hobbies include endurance sports such as skiing and running.
