12.-23.11. Jyri Ala-Ruona: APPARITIONS

Opening on Tuesday 11.11. 18-20.

Opening hours: Wed - Fri 12-18, Sat - Sun 12-16

The paintings in the exhibition refer to energy flows and changes in the forms of energy. The works are based on my interest, stemming from own personal history, in examining energy consumption and the relationship between painting and photography as manifestations of neuroticism. The presentation of the works, which requires lengthy and layered painting, is essentially linked to the themes I deal with in them.

In the painting Apparition/Selfie, one can see a gasoline stain spilled from a car on the asphalt. Waste energy transformed into pollution is full of meaningful energy. The stain is an unintentional sign of human conscious action and the work made possible by oil. The oil slick, loosely following the shape of a head, has ended up in front of me through a materialization process of millions of years and long technical refinement. Like a prism, it reflects the color spectrum resembling a halo onto a shape drawn on the dark asphalt.

I took a picture of the apparition with my phone before its shape disintegrated in the rain. Photographs have a special ability to activate memories. I see myself in the stain. I remember summer fun as a child on the hot asphalt of my home street. I remember the gasoline stains glistening in the sun and their smell.

I paint the stain, perceiving it as a self-portrait and ponder how, in the face of the painting, questions about the meanings of one’s own existence and being in the world arise bodily and concretely.

Jyri Ala-Ruona (b.1986) is a visual artist living and working in Helsinki. He graduated from the Lahti Institute of Fine Arts and the University of the Arts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts. Ala-Ruona’s work focuses on painting.

This exhibition has been supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland.