THE SNAKE THAT ATE ITS OWN TAIL – Samu Raatikainen, Peter Lamb, Joby Williamson

Whilst acknowledging more traditional forms of painting and sculpture, Peter Lamb, Samu Raatikainen and Joby Williamson explore and obscure such processes by concerning themselves with incidental observations. Everyday objects and situations; drawn, photographed or collected, provide us with snippets of information as reminders or tokens of the ‘real’ world.
Their representation can then be re-evaluated to such an extent that traditional readings of the work become indistinct. Such counter weighting helps to create surfaces that ripple with activity. On one hand caught in a permanent state of flux and on the other repeated with a workmanlike austerity that enables the work to move forward.
Often the work won’t be considered ‘finished’ but instead ‘ready’ and represents thought processes and production strategies. The artists in this exhibition allow an instability at the heart of their work, the ground shifts beneath their feet and a new day begins…

Peter Lamb combines scaled-up photographs of his well-worn ‘painterly’ studio floor with painted gestural overlays. The physical paint marks contradict the representational space of the photograph. A paradoxical reading of a vertiginous shot of the flat floor, re-presented on the wall and then painted upon as if it were a regular wall-based painting, provides an optical double-take that positions the viewer in an impossible space. Lamb questions the seeming differences between the two mediums whilst simultaneously disorientating his audience.
www.peterlamb.org

Samu Raatikainen’s work has simplicity and minimalistic use of material that results in ambiguously scaled image, which could refer to a cosmic view or a microscopic image. The starting point is often patterns found on the sheet materials used in the construction industry, giving the viewer a sense of an unspecified yet somehow familiar image or memory. The process of creating and editing the image is then repeated systematically numerous times, and the image develops it’s own internal references and logical. The resulting monochrome austere image is similar in feeling to a photograph’s negative, and in that way shows a cross section of an artistic process more than a completed work.
www.samuraatikainen.com

The found object has an enduring fascination for many artists, but few have such an affectionate, observant obsession as Joby Williamson. Used plastic buckets, broom handles, crushed cardboard boxes, fragile and abandoned tables, screwed up and thrown away post-it notes: these prosaic things, the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life, are the source for Williamson’s artworks and installations. When he looks at the things around us he sees the people who made or owned them – his practice pivots around “the inverted memory we apply to objects” and acts as an archaeological study of today’s artefacts.
www.jobywilliamson.com

Exhibition sponsored by Arts Council of Finland and Pori Art Museum