KARI VEHOSALO: Unknown Pleasures

The beautifully detailed and carefully composed works of Kari Vehosalo's exhibition possess a silent atmosphere familiar from his previous pieces. A feeling as if something terrifying is nearing, lurking around the corner. In the light of the current terrors in the world, the themes and issues the paintings stir up strike with a heavier, even more somber tone than before.

Unknown pleasures in the name of the exhibition refer to the desires and enjoyments that lie unrecognized, hidden from our consciousness. In Vehosalo's paintings these pleasures manifest themselves in form of black circular holes – hovering objects or openings painted on the canvas. The subject of pleasure lies hidden under draped covers or behind a curtain, under a finger poking the skin of a shoulder. It lies blurred under a film or unattainable behind a coat of coal dust, sealed to an acrylic box. It is scattered over the ever-changing sea and stares back at us from the depths of a darkness.

Pleasure and suffering can coexist, sometimes even simultaneously. The sublime splendour of the landscapes stages the scene for our enjoyment – for our pleasure, but at the same time question our false sense of omnipotence and place everything back to their real, terrifying proportions. It reveals our limitations and helplessness in the face of nature. Forces of nature pour over us be it in form of waves, the immense scale of the mountain scenes, trees bending in the wind or with the rising cloud formation, covered ominously with charcoal.

Nature here, painted on canvas, doesn't always act as we expect it to. There is an extraordinary light glowing from behind what appears to be a mountain or a cliff, inexplicably floating in dark emptiness on two plates. Light from the black sun between the mountain tops doesn't fall according to the laws of physics. The subdued colour palette, matrix of black spots or the physical separation and reflection of an acrylic frame all create a distance: a little disturbance that reminds us it's a painting we're looking at, a distance that makes us alert, maybe even uneasy, but encourages to take another look, to think again.