CONTEMPORARY ART FROM FINLAND (2)

Big Story – Small Human

Antero Kahila and Ilkka Sariola

We cordially invite you to the vernissage on Friday, 6 September 2024 from 7 pm.

Exhibition duration: 8 September to 13 October 2024

Antero Kahila and Ilkka Sariola both deal with the darker sides of human existence in their work; in Kahila’s case, these are emotions, moods – insecurity, fear, vulnerability – while Ilkka Sariola focuses on abysmal cruelty, on what people are capable of doing to other people.

Antero Kahila creates oil paintings on canvas, often in large formats. His works are a reflection of the human condition. He often depicts people, whereby his motifs are skin, individual body parts or clothing that represent the whole person. The depicted parts or elements are those with which people come into contact with the outside world, with others. The artist has studied Caravaggio’s work intensively over decades and on several trips to Italy in particular, and has learned the painting techniques of the old masters. Through this way of painting, Kahila’s pictures seem to glow from within. Individual figures or elements stand as if lost on an expansive black background and remind us of the feeling of being lost in the world, of being thrown into the world, of forlornness. Kahila’s paintings emanate a deep tranquility.

In stark contrast to this, Sariola’s large-format charcoal drawings are strikingly expressive and full of movement. In them, the horror felt when confronted with the terrible acts of humans towards humans, torture, rape, cruel killings, concentration camps. The drawings are often like decipherable narrations in which different moments of an event are told side by side. Perhaps this simultaneity is a reference to medieval altarpieces – Sariola is an ordained theologian and was a pastor for several years before becoming a freelance artist. Echoes of Christian traditions can be found in the titles of his drawings and series pictures – Crucifixion, Requiem, Dies Irae. His works also bear witness to a deeply felt ethical impetus, and he doesn’t exclude the church(es) from pointing out crimes, where atrocities have been or are being committed in the name of religious institutions or by its representatives.

The works in the exhibition are very different in terms of artistic technique and expression, while the two artists share a serious examination of human life – of the human condition.

About the artists

Antero Kahila is an award-winning Finnish artist. He studied art at the Lahti Art School. Since the 1990s, he has regularly travelled to workshops, symposia and study trips in Italy and also in Germany and Great Britain to study Caravaggio’s work and traditional oil painting techniques. After extensive research he reconstructed Caravaggio’s lost painting St Matthew and the Angel. Kahila’s reconstruction was highly praised and exhibited several times. Antero Kahila lives in Helsinki and exhibits regularly in Finland and internationally. His works are represented in a number of established Finnish museums and in the Finnish State Art Collection.

Ilkka Sariola is a Finnish visual artist and ordained pastor. He studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki and was a draughtsman and performance artist for ten years before studying theology and then becoming a pastor. In the mid-2010s, he decided to become a freelance artist again. His works have been exhibited internationally and in Finland and he has taught drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Free Art School, both in Helsinki. His works are represented in the collections of the Hämeenlinna Art Museum, the Alvar Aalto Museum, the Academy of Fine Arts and in many private collections. Ilkka Sariola lives and works in Helsinki.