FRAGMENTS – Elina Försti, Tapani Hyypiä, Eeva Kokki, Aila Leppikangas

This exhibition by three artists consists of paintings and three-dimensional objects in space. The oil paintings by Elina Försti, Aila Leppikangas, and Tapani Hyypiä explore space, light, and transparency. Eeva Kokki’s works are fragments, structures, and installations.

Elina Försti
In the last year, I have used the Finnish barn as the starting point for my paintings. I don’t have an emotional attachment to the barn, nor am I interested in barns for their functional purpose. Only transparency and form inspire me to use the barn as a starting point. The barn is a transitional element in my paintings, through which I explore space, light, and color. The light and landscape peeking through the barn’s doorways and between the logs are more interesting observations than the barn itself.

Tapani Hyypiä
In my paintings, the subject is relatively secondary. It’s more of an excuse for me to search for colors, mix them, add, and scratch them away. During this process, I try to tell myself what I’m thinking and feeling right now, and when successful, the painting shows me what I wouldn’t otherwise see. The starting point is usually some event, landscape, or mental image that sparks the creation of the painting. The work often begins with a drawing but quickly shifts in a non-representational direction. Several years ago, one of the subjects that emerged in my paintings was a column or tower. In these works, I try to shape my mental image of space, as I currently perceive it. In all my work, however, the significance of searching for color is essential; it tells me things about myself that can only be seen through painting.

Eeva Kokki
I use various materials in my works, exploring possibilities. The scale and nature of the works vary. The starting point can be the exhibition space, found objects, childhood memories, reflections on the water’s surface, a sentence in a book, a film… Some of my works exist only for a brief period, created specifically for a certain space and then dismantled into raw material, perhaps waiting for a new birth in a different form elsewhere. The works in this exhibition are installations, structures, and fragments. The materials I have used include, for example, tin cigar boxes, a divan base, and sheet metals.

Aila Leppikangas
For me, painting primarily represents the metaphor of human experience. I have photographed the landscape in the darkness of night, overexposing the images intensely. In my photos, day merges with night. In the dark, the significance of sight diminishes, and the darkness adds a multisensory quality to perception, bringing nature close to the skin. Small stories about the moisture on the skin, breathing, and the absence of breath.

This text was created with AI assistance