First of all, happy new year everyone! 2020 was extremely hard year for many, I hope this one will be a lot better for everyone. I'll try and do my best contribute to that goal.
While the global circumstances were dire last year, I personally have a lot to be grateful for, like the opportunity to present this virtual exhibition to which all of you are invited to.
Scroll down to bottom for the links if you'd like to skip all this reading business and come back if you would like to learn more about it.
Having my first working grant from Arts Promotion Centre Finland allowed the creation of the paintings for this exhibition in the first place and restarting with NFT art brought in many good things to my life. Cryptoart space is full with enthusiastic people constantly coming up with new ideas and the presense of virtual art and galleries is just every day experience. This exhibition was meant to be a real one opening on January 1st. but due to the circumstances with the virus I called it off and we decided with the gallery to have virtual one instead, postponing the physical one to later. Special thanks to Nigel from Infinite Art Museum for helping me get this set up.
The real life gallery has black walls, which i had in mind when i made the paintings, so the gallery follows suit of course. I was very excited when i had the walls and first painting hanging up. A virtual exhibition does actually a whole lot better than i expected it would at providing the experience it does, especially, with the VR goggles on. Also i get to share it with whole lot more people and hopefully reach those who will find it meaningful.
The exhibition is called Circles, mainly pointing to the many the cycles of life. While planning for the exhibition started before the pandemic hit globally, there came to be an unintended but fitting reference to the virus which is named after the gas circle surrounding the sun.
I got to working on the paintings midway of the year and hoped the situation would be over before by the opening date, which unfortunately as we know has not been the case. My father had passed the previous year so this project was also a kind of conclusion to the mourning and is dedicated to his memory. The first work of the exhibition is also made as an offering of condolences for people who have lost people during the pandemic, as there was a lot of unseen grief behind the headlines which i wanted to create something to emphatize with it.
at the crowded studio
As with my previous exhibition Cold Mirror, the intention with Circles was to create a strong experience with color for purpose of healing. Similarly to the previous one these paintings also make group of certain kind of archetypes that together create a tacit story arc. The works also have sort of parents in the previous exhibition - sometimes more than two, which with associaton contribute to the choices of color and the meanings behind them. There is a strong spiritual and conceptual side to the whole process. A lot of thought goes into it and it has to feel right before i proceed to painting. I begin by using raw pigments to mix the paints by hand, signifying ownership of my personal experiences and transforming them into something shareable and hopefully beneficial. In each of the paintings the paint is handled differently to reflect on the theme of the work. Those choices are very intuitive and usually happen in the moment once i begin to paint. I set some restrictions before this whole process for the exhibition, like having only four paintings of certain size, abstract and limited in color, but i am allowing myself freedom in the painting process and not deciding how it should look before hand.
I returned to the pool for a little recovery. It is even more spectacular in winter
For example the Foundling was worked very lightly and left at very early stage compared to other ones, but i was confident it was the right choice because of the meanings behind it. The idea for the colors have origins in the first and last pieces of the previous exhibition, light green Saint Tadpole and deep blue from Wizard of the Abyss, though that is only the starting point for the mix. The color was truly realized when I made a visit to nearby county, where there is natural wonder of large pool of spring water with a bright turqouise water. Nature has been always a great inspiration to me underlying subject of my art. In the spring that my fathers sickness got worse, i started collecting stones on my way from work to lighten the journey. As a sort of meditation I was particularly looking for a green one, no specific reason for the color. A literal green stone was found in the fall at a pagan fair , under an offering tree. A year from that spring i found my self in the practice of druidry. I know there is someone might get a kick out of that.
The name Foundling came from the recent TV-Series Mandalorian that rejuvinated the magic of my childhood favourite Star Wars. A lot of the appeal in the series is about the mystery of the so called Baby Yoda. In the spirit of this kind of mystery, The foundling is all about new beginnings, a celebration of discovery in painting and in life.
The approach has been similar to each of the works. There are brief descriptions of each in the PC version, while the mobile has been stripped for performance reasons. Links to both are below they open in the browser.
Instructions
PC
you can look around with holding the left button and move around with WASD-keys.
VR
I've tested only with Oculus Quest and recommend using the device browser.
May need to refresh or hop in and out of the VR to get the controllers showing.
Mobile
texts have been removed for performance reasons
Tilt device to look around, swipe left or right to turn,touch screen to move forward and
look down and touch bottom part of screen to look back.
There have been some bugs,i've tried to sort out, but hope you had a great experience.
Mikko
