Timo Vaittinen
Magical Moments
14.5. – 25.5.2008
Galleria Huuto Uudenmaankatu
Milkshake without a recipe.
Imagine a kitchen with almost endless amount of ingredients and a blender. Not one of those handheld blenders but a traditional one with a glass jug. Pour in the jug an unmeasured amount of media imagery from different times, thermal camera images from science magazines, 60’s psychedelia, optic art, weekday fantasies, not so fantastic weekdays, 80’s and fluorescent colors, graffiti, videogames, tropic heat, winter dullness, magic, mystic and alchemy, Hawkwind mixed in gabber style. Turn the blender to full power for a very long time and pour the mixture into canvas or video and let it attach a while.
Paintings in the exhibition are covered with glossy layer of epoxy resin that distances the viewer from the materiality of paint and confuses the border between paint and collage. The paintings themselves tell stories where lived moments and fantasy mix in organized chaos. One of the paintings depicts a “boys” evening with playstation, beer and who knows what. Shapes and colors have slivered, dripped and changed form. Reality is relative in the painting. It is like Peter Fonda would had transferred himself from the 60’s thrashmovie The Trip to contemporary time. Fondas will to experiment has faded into normal weekend escape from reality.
Videos in the exhibition and the figures portrayed in the painting have at least one thing in common, never get bored. Stop-motion animation technique is a lot of work and takes a lot of time. In the videos abstract and figurative mix, but there is no story to be found. One of the videos only claim: this is all I wanted to say. It feels like these videos are made even if there is nothing to say, at least in purpose. The works trust in the power of unconceptual visual language.
Robert Bettercrunch
Stonehenge 15.3.2008
