Ilari Hautamäki
Indoor Fireworks

11.01. - 03.02.2019

Helsinki Contemporary's year starts with two exhibitions, as Ilari Hautamäki and Camilla Vuorenmaa share the gallery space.

Ilari Hautamäki’s Indoor Fireworks exhibition shows a series of new, vividly coloured paintings.

By varying their diverse elements the paintings occupy the middle ground between the functional and the organic, the built and the natural. To Hautamäki the works are abstract, but some recognizable elements have also been consciously chosen for them. It is up to viewers whether they see in these works the green leaves of a plant, a butterfly’s wings, insects, all of the above, or something else entirely. 

Hautamäki describes himself as aiming for freedom in his painting, while still retaining his own characteristic rigour. He is interested in nature’s ‘perfect chaos’, in how the uncontrolled can simultaneously be in exactly the right order. The working process begins spontaneously and intuitively, after which the work advances more slowly. In the paintings we move between different levels – what appears to be in the background is actually in the foreground, and vice versa. The elements of the works also move forwards and outwards, projecting out from inside the frame, blazing like fireworks.

“What I am after is a polarization, and also a competition, between the organic and the industrial level, and the tension formed out of them, through which a balanced image arises. This equation interests me, because it creates a challenge and an inquisitiveness about my compositions, and about my processes.”

The rhythms and movement in Hautamäki’s paintings recur from one work to the next, but varying as they do so. Alongside the movement and brushstrokes the paintings also contain flat colour fields and blank spots and gaps, thus giving rise to the rhythm that is the hallmark of Hautamäki’s works.

Ilari Hautamäki (b. 1983) is a Helsinki visual artist. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 2011 and has since shown actively in solo and group exhibitions. His most recent sizeable solo exhibition was at the HAM Gallery, Helsinki, in 2017. His group exhibitions include those at Mänttä Art Festival, Hämeenlinna Art Museum, Jyväskylä Art Museum, and the Young Artists exhibition at Kunsthalle Helsinki. In 2018-2019, Hautamäki took part in The Touch exhibition series at Tornio Art Museum, Seinäjoki Art Hall and Pro Artibus’ Sinne gallery in Helsinki. His works are represented in Helsinki Art Museum, HAM’s collection, the Wihuri art collection, and elsewhere.

Read about Camilla Vuorenmaa's exhibition Roses, Black Birds and Witches here, on view at the same time!