Jyri Ala-Ruona:
SPECTRAL FIELDS

"The paintings in the exhibition refer to energy flows and changes in the forms of energy. The works are based on my interest in examining energy consumption and the relationship between painting and photography as manifestations of neuroticism, which stems from my own personal history. The representational nature 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 gasoline 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. The ghost of the pressure and compression of aeons, which, like a prism, reflects the color spectrum like 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 saw myself in the stain. I remembered summer fun as a child on the hot asphalt of my home street. I remembered the gasoline stains glistening in the sun and their smell.

I painted the stain, perceiving it as a self-portrait and pondered 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.

Recently, I have also been looking down, photographing the ground a lot. Even if there is something inherently sad about this, I am not referring to depression, but to the idea of the planet itself as sad and the earth as a platform on which one can see glimpses of this. At the same time, the direction of my gaze is related to the way we see the world by looking down at the screens of our phones.

The platform delineated by the image of a horizontally placed phone moves to the wall of my studio in front of me. The direction of my gaze changes. When I paint one surface for a long time, a state of deep concentration is created in the studio, which contains a wide range of emotions, thoughts and philosophies. The snapshot image is shaped into a different kind of presentation. It creates an inner image of the mind, which is processed and understood through the manipulation of the paints."

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.

The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Notice! Opening hours: Tuesday–Thursday 12–18, Friday–Sunday 12–16