JURY 2015 – Juuso Leppälä, Samu Raatikainen, Jenni Uusitalo
The 2015 exhibition program at Poriginal Gallery begins with a group exhibition featuring visual artist members representing artist associations from the jury.
Juuso Leppälä (b. 1981, Viljakkala, Ylöjärvi) studied at the Kankaanpää School of Fine Arts from 2001 to 2005. Leppälä’s works are drawn, relatively small in size, and often monochromatic. They have connections to both comic art and metal engraving.
The works on display belong to the Runner’s Hallucinations series, an ongoing project spanning a longer period of time. Primarily created with ink and acrylic on board, the images tell the story of an ultramarathon runner who, as the race progresses, begins to experience hallucinations and dreamlike flashes. The hallucinations intertwine the character’s personal, societal, and historical images.
Samu Raatikainen (b. 1971, Helsinki) studied at the Free Art School (1991-94) and completed a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London in 1997. He moved to Pori in 2010 after living in England for fourteen years.
Raatikainen’s paintings present open interpretations of distant nebula landscapes and details from nature. They consist of separate panels connected to one another, where abstraction and figuration converse. The juxtaposition of these visual themes alters the essence and meaning of the subject presented by each panel. The panel transforms into a different “personality” and becomes an unrecognizable space. In the mixed-media paintings, the landscape appears as a process of matter without end, a moment of change and experience.
The exhibition is supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
Jenni Uusitalo (b. 1987, Vantaa) graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Kankaanpää School of Fine Arts in 2011. In December 2014, she also earned her Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Aalto University. Uusitalo primarily works with installations, and her minimalist works are often made from readymade materials. In January 2015, Uusitalo will set up her “Bears” installation in the basement of Poriginal Gallery, which caused a stir in her previous exhibition.
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