Sometimes described as autofiction, the portraits are often triggered by a mundane moment or observation of real life – the shame of having to break into your own storage cage, getting drenched at a summer festival, sharing a campfire evening with a friend. From such experiences and faces of friends, Slotte crafts rich symbolic scenes that are dense with meaning, empathetic in their gaze, and breathtaking in their details. Moving from large canvases to smaller coloured pencil drawings, the palette becomes more acidic, the figures more fantastical, the line more unforgiving.
The restless and conflicted characters in Slotte’s paintings have been bruised and now defend themselves against the world with spikes, protective walls, or by retreating into their mind. Their features are rugged, their gaze inaccessible yet relatable. The figure in Endless Cloak and Howling Candles attempts to anchor himself in fantasy by dressing up in a cape and a hat from a costume shop. One feels safer with the ghostly scenario in the background than with the real world, the eventual destruction of which is signalled by the Extinction Rebellion sticker on the rubbish bin.
The immersiveness of the images is enhanced by the precision of the captured moments, tones, smells, tastes, sensations and moods – spaghetti sucked between the lips in the smell of approaching rain, the sticky surface of a plastic garden chair under tartly hanging apples, sweet nectarine juice dripping from the corners of the mouth in the hum of a pallid subway train, the revelation striking a swimmer in a dark pond in the forest like a lightning bolt burning a scar on the forehead. The plants and patterns around the scenes serve as markers to the characters’ mindscapes. Band shirts are emblazoned with names like Sonic Poison and Witch Vomit. Ruins smoulder and a heart bleeds in arm tattoos. The rowan tree, an observer’s plant, frames the activities of a precariat imp as a windowless fairy-tale castle in the background fades further and further away.
Notwithstanding the lonely wanderers and glimpses of despair, the romantic title of the exhibition hints at a rediscovered connection, an encounter with the other, rest from loneliness, if only for a moment. A scratched, armoured figure tenderly holds a rose (that stung him earlier?), while the hands of a green-patinated bronze figure descend to offer comfort to whiskey-soaked sorrow.
-Oona Latto
Joel Slotte (b. 1987, Kokkola) lives and works in Helsinki. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2016. In 2021, Slotte was elected the Young Artist of the Year. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently in a major solo exhibition at the Turku Art Museum in spring 2024. In 2022 he was invited to the international ARS22 exhibition of contemporary art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. Slotte’s works have been acquired by major public and private collections in Finland, Sweden and Denmark, including the art museums of Helsinki, Tampere and Turku, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Pro Artibus Foundation.
