Ville Andersson
I'm a Wound and a Sword, a Victim and an Executioner. I Am Your Mirror.

05. - 28.10.2012

“I’ve always preferred mythology to history. Because history is made up of truths which eventually turn into lies. Mythology is made up of lies that eventually become truths.”

- Jean Cocteau

Helsinki Contemporary has the pleasure to open Ville Andersson’s solo exhibition I’m a wound and a sword, a victim and an executioner. I am your Mirror.

Andersson’s exhibition consists of new photographs, paintings and drawings. In the dramatized situations of the photographs, there’s a strong mystical and psychological force. This force is also present in the paintings, which are in dialogue with a former civilization; with both literature, film and fine art.

In the artist’s style you can see influences from many different time periods. Andersson sees clear links and continuums in this wide source material. He uses the archive of art history as a sort of dictionary, forming new sentences, and bringing the dialogue that’s already going on, further.

The subjects of the works that have been produced this year are known from the artist’s earlier production: in the centre, there are human figures. The figures are surrounded by a mystical atmosphere, that doesn’t leave the viewer with an easy task. Andersson doesn’t reveal too much about his characters, but wants every viewer to form a personal relationship to them.

The works are moving in a world of nuances of black and white, which is also known from Andersson’s earlier production. The black-and-whiteness functions as something that makes time stop, the pictures seem to live in their own world, apart from the viewer’s reality.

The names of the works, like I am Visconti and Melancholia, bring to mind Luchino Visconti’s and Lars von Trier’s films. Andersson points out that in these films you can see a flawless style walking hand in hand with a rupture - a rupture that makes the works a part of life. The same thing you can see in the works of the exhibition: paradise has been lost.

Esthetic and beauty do have their own place in Andersson’s art. As he sees it, this is a veil through which we can filter even our darker feelings – the conscious and the unconscious ones. The work of art functions as some kind of softening device, with the help of which we can be in touch with these feelings. In this contact, there is also a possibility of change.

Ville Andersson (born in 1986) graduated as a Master of Art from The Finnish Academy of Fine Art in the spring of 2012. Andersson has participated in numerous exhibitions even during his years of study. Recently, for example, at The National Art Center in Tokyo. Works by Andersson are already to be found in many public and private collections both in Finland and abroad, for example in the collections of Amos Anderson’s Art Museum, Paavo and Päivi Lipponen, and Saastamoinen Foundation.