Kaarlo Stauffer‘s eighth solo exhibition “Maalauksia mäeltä” (Paintings from the Hill) brings together works painted in 2018 – 2021, which are located on Stauffer’s home hill in Villähde, in former Nastola. The exhibition is a kaleidoscopic glimpse into the essence and history of a farm; it is also a cross-illuminated ghost exhibition in which the hill unfolds as a fantasy-like tableau – not as a series of scenes, but as a strange presence of things and spaces conjured to visible existence.
The works are based on old family images and thus continue Stauffer’s reflections on the interactive relationship between photography and painting. At the same time, the works belong to a, mostly literary, tradition of art, where melancholy, inspiration, and poetic movement are drawn from the ravages of the past world. Included in the exhibition, is a collection of writings born during the painting process. The booklet aims to deepen the viewer’s exhibition experience and may be taken home for further reading.
The paintings themselves clarify the development familiar to Stauffer from last year’s exhibition “Figures of Light, Shipwreck”, where the presence of the photograph disappears in the way of the painting’s fascinating features, such as a rhythmic brush and strong texture. In the most recent works, the subject is seemingly more reduced, as the light phenomenon of the paintings takes on an even more holistic and mystical role: on one hand, light reveals, on the other hand, the oil color hides.
The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Center Finland and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Kaarlo Stauffer (b. 1988 Nastola) lives and works in Helsinki. He graduated MFA from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2014 and has since held private exhibitions in Helsinki and Turku and has participated in group exhibitions both in Finland and internationally. In 2020, Stauffer curated the Nastola Summer exhibition. His works are found in public collections, such as Stockholms läns landsting, Heino Foundation collection, Turku Art Museum’s collection, and the Finnish State Art Deposit Collection.
Mediabox