Art can serve as a way to examine injustice, marginalization and other pressing social problems. The painting can be a silent political statement for a better world and humanity.
This exhibition presents different aspects of street life. The name of the exhibition could also be “the fall of the welfare state”. I try to highlight groups of people and destinies that we like to clean out of our thoughts. Brought to the gallery, we have to look at the marginalized, we have to face what we might not want to see or think about. In front of us is another person with his joys and sorrows, raised on the wall, worthy of a painting.
The polarization of our well-being is reflected on the street. EU citizens go around begging on street corners in the hope of better things, drug addicts spend their time on benches, people look for a living in garbage. Control representatives do their work. People pass each other, lives progress on different levels, perhaps never meeting.
The method of execution of the works is traditional oil painting on a two-dimensional surface following very classical traditions. The tension builds when traditional technology meets the modern subject world, when “social” and “realism” meet each other. I graduated as a visual artist in 2009 from the Lahti Art Institute. From my previous education, I have a master’s degree in social sciences (University of Tampere 1996). With this background combination, it is quite natural to end up studying the “social” through the means of art as well.
In art paintings, situations are recorded on canvas or paper slowly, and a very far-reaching dialogue between the work and the world is not possible. The work remains the artist’s statement on things or phenomena, becoming an interpretation of the work in the viewer’s mind. Still, the art of painting as a means of influence can be fascinating and necessary. Pictures don’t offer answers, just questions that deserve to be asked. The pictures offer a memory trace, a picture of another person, our kindred partner.
The opening of the exhibition will be held on Tuesday 15 November 2022 from 17:00 to 19:00.
Warm welcome!
