Between Birth and Death – Markku Laakso
Markku Laakso brings a 65-piece painting series Between Birth and Death (2011–2015) to the Poriginal Gallery, along with more recent works, including those of naked people in sleeping bags. The paintings in the exhibition share a common theme of the relationship between humans, different cultures, and nature, as well as the confusion amidst the randomness of life.
“The series Between Birth and Death (2011–2015) consists of sixty-five paintings of the same size. I spontaneously decided to create paintings without worrying about whether they are connected to each other. The series is like a slow Instagram, which I updated over four years. The subjects were chosen just before painting, based on the mood of the moment. I gave myself complete freedom; the subject could be completely marginal or very personal. The series includes both private and public, images painted from observation or borrowing from photo albums. Together, they form a vision of the space between birth and death.
The naked sleepers, yawners, stretchers, and wakeful people in sleeping bags have been inspired by various sources over the years. My treatment of nudity in my paintings stems from a love for classical art, and my motivation has not changed much, although it has gained new nuances from following contemporary art. My latest sleeping bag themes have been inspired by Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. A few years ago, I spent a month in Florence and Rome, exploring the roots of the Renaissance. The paintings express feelings of liminality, confusion, the contradiction between shame and freedom, and the burden of original sin. The sleeping bag is a private shell, a nest. Still, in the end, a person is always naked, bare, inside the sleeping bag or clothing. As a feminist, I try not to categorize my subjects by gender, though I am aware of the inevitable limitations of the treatment. The body is an ever-changing definition, molded like fashion through the ages and cultures.
The newest painting in the exhibition, Boat Trip, is based on a theme from over ten years ago. The sketch for the piece has existed all these years. The painting has surprising connections to Pori. It evokes Gallen-Kallela’s fresco theme from the Juselius Mausoleum, where naked people submit to their fate and step into a boat to cross the river to the land of the dead. In my painting, a group of naked boat travelers does not yet seem to be concerned about the limits of life, even though a skull present in the scene serves as a reminder of it. There is something threatening and unconscious in the air. Intuitively, I have placed myself in the image similarly to how Gallen-Kallela depicted himself looking to the right in the fresco on the river to the land of the dead.”
Markku Laakso (born 1970) is originally from Enontekiö in Lapland and is known for his Elvis-themed paintings. He lives and works in Turku. Over the past ten years, Laakso has expanded his work into photography and video art. Together with his visual artist spouse Annika Dahlsten, they have explored Laakso’s Sámi heritage in their projects. Since 1988, Laakso has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Finland and the Nordic countries, as well as in Italy, France, Iceland, Japan, the USA, and Germany.
Translated with ChatGPT