Jesse Avdeikov
A Man With The Moustache
18 September–11 October 2020
The artist is present Sat Sep 19 and Sun Oct 4 at 12-17.
The exhibition features works that are linked to memories and thoughts about my father. The works do not tell a coherent story or serve as documentation of the past. They try to capture feelings and images, perhaps forming a portrait of the atmosphere.
I try to remember the last time I spoke to him on the phone. I can’t remember and it bothers me. Perhaps I was in Berlin and I said that I can’t talk right now. He was drunk and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Some of my memories disappear and I am not able to get hold of them. The next call that came from his phone was not made by him. When I saw the caller’s name and the time on the screen, I knew that something had happened. Perhaps I guessed it.
A week later I was at school and I didn’t tell anything to anyone. At lunchtime, I sat in the middle of my friends and at times I couldn’t hear anything. It was as if my brain had decided that everything I hear makes no sense. In the middle of a lesson, I left the classroom to discuss funeral arrangements over the phone. When I walked home from school, I wanted to fall to my knees. I expected it to happen a couple of times, but it never did. Instead, I processed it all slowly in my own way. I was quiet, I cried, I painted, I wrote, I ran and occasionally fully enjoyed my life and laughed. It sounds like a cliché, but when dealing with death, life seemed more beautiful than before.
My father would have turned 60 this year, but he decided that no one needed him anymore. He had gradually lost his sense of purpose years ago and I didn’t know how to help him.
In addition to my memories, I had photos and some items that belonged to my father. They helped me turn my grief into an exhibition two years after it happened. I didn’t end up using all my ideas. This exhibition took shape spontaneously.
Gravestones are a boring way of remembering someone and saying that I miss him is too simple a way to describe how I feel.
In memory of my father. Love, Jesse
Jesse Avdeikov (b. 1986, Petrozavodsk, Russia) lives and works in Helsinki. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts (University of the Arts Helsinki) in 2020.
jesse.avdeikov(a)gmail.com
jesseavdeikov.com
Instagram: @jesseavokado
