Vesa Hjort, Kimmo Kumela & Reija Palo-oja:
Group Exhibition

The HAA Gallery exhibition features three highly unique ensembles in terms of atmosphere and visual expression. Despite their differences, the artists' working principles share similar motifs. They are united by the multi-level nature of their subjects, an interest in exploring their own expression, and the utilization of the diverse possibilities of materials. The layering, repetition, sensitivity, and bare presence of the subjects create an internal tension in the works that opens up space for experiences that are difficult to verbalize and define. For artists, a subject can be both concrete and mental, a space supported by color and expression, or a level that occurs at the interface of abstraction and metaphor.  

In Vesa Hjort's (1971) new works, the process of making itself has become more clearly the focus of the works. This is particularly evident in the drawings shown in the exhibition, where the repeatedly drawn line of varying thickness and length, builds an upward and downward movement on the image surface. The continuous flow of the line serves as both a document of the act of drawing and a visual trace refering to time and temporality, to temporal changes. The purely visual and abstract movement created in the works represents the movements and changes that occur in life – the flow of life.  

Vesa Hjort is a painter born and working in Helsinki. His primary technique is acrylic painting, but during the recent years he has started to use different drawing techniques as well. Working with colored pencils, colored drawing inks and ballpoint pens. He has been active as a visual artist since his Masters degree in 2002 from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now Aalto University). Hjort's work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (2025).   

At the heart of Kimmo Kumela's (1971) artistic work is an interest in precision and care as a counterbalance to playfulness and expressive exaggeration. The subjects in Kumela's works comment on current events in the world in poetic ways. Through multi-material experiments and versioning he approaches the themes of his works from different directions. Kumela works with the means of drawing, painting and collage, but the starting point for his works is often photography. Technical variations and repetition are central to Kumela's artistic work. The dark, almost black and white works often depict landscape and contain hints of hidden stories in the works. 
 
Kumela graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (KuM) from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2001. He has organized several solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group and joint exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Kumela was awarded the William Thuring Award in 2013. He co-founded Gallery Huuto in Helsinki in 2002 and served as a member of the gallery's board in the early years. Kumela was also responsible for the operations of Galleria Bokvillan in Helsinki from 2014 to 2020. 
 
 

Reija Palo-oja's (1970) painting process combines a delicate and distinctive, partly intuitive, expression. In her new paintings, the dialogue between different surfaces and fragments creates wholes in which control and chance, planning and impulse coexist. Palo-oja continues the themes familiar from her previous work, in which imaginary backdrops, wall surfaces and traces found in the environment function as visual metaphors for the construction of identity and the shaping of boundaries. The painted surfaces appear partly fragile, torn and unfinished – as if they are attempts to assemble whole images from incomplete pieces. At the same time, the works reflect the uncertainty and fragmentation that characterize the present and invite us to consider how identity and experience of the world are constructed in constant change. The works are based on the time spent in the artist residency in Matera.   

Reija Palo-oja (KuM) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. Palo-oja's works are included in the art collections of, among others, the State, HAM, the Finnish Art Association, the City of Turku and HUS. Reija Palo-oja lives in Turku.  

During this exhibition, the gallery is open on Sundays.