Untitled, 2016
mixed media
177 x 242 cm
Antti Nyyssölä’s exhibition is in two parts.
The first part consists of artist’s books containing drawings, collages, copies of works, frottages, paintings and all kinds of things. In these books Nyyssölä is interested not only in the dimension of time involved in browsing and moving from one set of facing pages to another but also in the layeredness of structure, narrativeness and the manner of existence that is specific to books in comparison with other kinds of works. Individual fragments and elements, perhaps even meaningless in themselves, collide in books, creating a visually rich cartography appealing to the sense of touch and the viewer’s own experiences and associations. They may contain notes like entries in a diary or travel journal, but the main consideration is to create new connections between things, objects and phenomena, or to highlight previously unnoticed ones. The complex construction of the books – binding, cutting, gluing, drawing and painting – also finds a parallel in the electronic stream of images of the Internet and the selections that are made from it.
The second part consists of separate artworks mounted on the walls. The central features of these works are on the one hand focus on individual materials, and on the other hand the role of craftsmanship and techniques developed by the artist himself. The painted surface of corrugated cardboard attached to corrugated sheet metal contains multiple elements of classic stripe painting, but interpreted in a new way. Though inspired by the tradition of abstract painting, these works are more complex in terms of interpretation than might first be assumed. When everyday materials – corrugated cardboard, plastic wrap, tape – became those of a work of art, they will represent themselves on the one hand, and on the other hand be purged of their quotidian nature. The painting represents an abstract painting, or repeats a form already abstracted from a concrete object (cross). An interesting aspect of Nyyssölä’s works is a kind of hovering at a borderline, an overlap of things and the moment of recognition when the abstract becomes figurative, or vice versa.
Antti Nyyssölä (born 1982, Helsinki) studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin in 2009 and graduated as Master of Fine Arts from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2013.
Ilona Anhava
