Juha Okko:
Male Portraits and Little Nightmares

The exhibition by Juha Okko (b. 1963) consists of two entities. The large works are the series Male Portraits, created in 2020–23, and the smaller works are the Little Nightmares, painted in 2025–24. 

In the case of Male Portraits, the viewer may ask why Okko has painted a series of portraits of middle-aged, stiff, and worn-out white men. Hasn't this genre been seen enough? The artist's starting point was the narrowness of social life during the pandemic. When restrictions preventing the spread of the Covid-2019 virus were eased in the summer of 2020, Okko invited 

friends, colleagues, and neighbors of his own age group to 60-minute sessions in his studio, one at a time. During the hour, they talked, updated each other’s own and worldly affairs, and at the same time Okko created a monochrome sketch for a large face portrait. The cell phone photos taken of the model serve as additional material for further work, but some of the original mistakes can still be found. The works are not primarily portraits, more like a representation of diversity in similarity. The result is a series of poster-like and simplified face portraits, almost empty signs. 

The series was continued from summer 2021. Mainly the same men visited the studio, now for 90 minutes at a time. Okko sketched a full-body portrait and fabrics, flowers and drinks arranged for the meeting in the studio. Several photos were taken again to continue the works. The rather uniform way of handling facial images gave way to an eclectic and more varied way of presentation. The paintings feature expressive abstract painting gestures, color surfaces, precise drawing and form building painting. Some of the details refer to the history of portrait art, but not directly. During the painting process, the environment is changing and active, the person is stationary and passive. The expressions of the people are focused, because posing is a serious matter. There is no laughing matter here. Garbage bags are thrown into the environment, more flowers, etc. The world must be endured as it changes. 

Okko has long pondered how a man becomes or could be as a social gender. What is a good man like and why some men have a strong tendency towards violence and power games. How does the competition that follows define all (men). But what about aging, death and renunciation? So-called hegemonic masculinity, understood as a single model of manhood, has long since broken down – and that's okay. Individual choices are what remains. And the confusion: "Didn't this get clearer than this?" 

The starting point for Little Nightmares is a digital, black-and-white photo collage. The collages are made up of photographs taken by the artist, scanned newspaper images and images copied from the internet. The paintings are a kind of offer bouquets, accumulations of miscellaneous material. The images can be seen as a comment on time. The paintings utilize different ways of presentation and juxtaposing them in one work creates noise and a different temporality. Some of the elements are, some are coming, some have already passed. Just like lived reality.