Tatu Tuominen
The Crown of God’s Creation – Reuben and Levi sitting on animals
(after Dirk Volkertsz Coornhert), 2023, acrylate and acrylic ink on wall, 260 x 485 cm
Galleria Huuto member artist Tatu Tuominen has made a painting in the lobby of the gallery’s new premises in Kalasatama. In his painting, Tuominen appropriates the idea of man from 16th century art, in which there are disturbing similarities to our own time.
In his wall painting, Tatu Tuominen copies and modifies the imagery of the 16th-century printmaker Dirk Volkertsz Coornhert’s Twelve Patriarchs print series. Tuominen has reproduced chosen figures of the series by tracing their lines on the wall with ink. In this way the historical idea of man is brought in a dialogue with the present time.
Even though the figures depicting virtues of antiquity, stories of the Bible and idealism of the Renaissance seem odd, grotesque and comical now, some things seem not to have changed in half a millennium: a male figure represents humanity, man subordinates other species to his own aspirations, and there is a war going on in the background .
Tatu Tuominen (born 1975) is a visual artist whose work deals with the relationship between printed image and memory. Tuominen is Lecturer in Printmaking at The Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki. He has presented his works in dozens of solo and group exhibitions in Finland and internationally for twenty years. His works have been exhibited at, among others, the Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma, MoCA Shanghai, Finnish Institute Stockholm, Forum Box, SIC Gallery and Mänttä Art Festival.
