Ilari Hautamäki
Spirit

07. - 30.05.2021

Spirit, a solo exhibition by Ilari Hautamäki, brings the radiance of spring to Helsinki Contemporary. In his new, richly coloured works Hautamäki continues his investigation of the relationships between the organic and the constructed, of the fine balance between chaos and order. Developing his familiar theme of plants has led him to focus on the movement of the hand and to the inclusion of elements reminiscent of typography and calligraphy. Organic material painted with spacious brushstrokes breaks up the geometric shapes and full colour fields.

Music is an important part of Hautamäki’s working process. The exhibition title, Spirit, comes from the spiritual jazz movement, and the arrangements of the works and their internal relations can be compared to musical compositions. “I often think that the different elements in my paintings move over the canvas like melodies. They contain improvisation, rhythms, pauses, energies, angularity and fluidity. In the same way as there might be, for example, in a jazz piece,” Hautamäki says. 

The exhibition is made up of multiple series of works on canvas and paper, all in conversation with each other. The collage – a new element in Hautamäki’s work – is seen in the compositions and picture fields in the Equation series. He is interested in investigating the nature of painting and in painterly solutions, in the way elements arranged on canvas negotiate and tack back-and-forth between each other, opening up spaces and spatial motion. The untrammelled use of colour as part of the painting also springs from the treatment of spatial relations and internal tensions.

The starting point for the Study series on paper is the habit Hautamäki has adopted of beginning each morning by drawing. This new routine has led to its own series of works in oil pastels, which brings the artist’s working process into the exhibition. The push-and-pull seen here between the rambling and organic and the considered and geometric is also mirrored in Hautamäki’s way of working, which is partly intuitive and process-like, and partly considered and systematic. 

Ilari Hautamäki (b. 1983) is a Helsinki-based visual artist. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki in 2011 and has since exhibited actively in solo and group exhibitions. His most recent solo exhibitions were at Helsinki Contemporary in 2019 and at HAM gallery in 2017. His group exhibitions include Mänttä Art Festival, Hämeenlinna Art Museum, Jyväskylä Art Museum and the Young Artists 2019 exhibition at Kunsthalle Helsinki. In 2018-2019, Hautamäki took part in the series of Touch exhibitions at Tornio Art Museum, Kunsthalle Seinäjoki and Pro Artibus’ Sinne gallery in Helsinki. His works are in HAM’s collection, the Wihuri Art Collection and elsewhere. In 2019, he made a public artwork for Munkkivuori primary school commissioned by the City of Helsinki. This summer, Hautamäki’s works will be shown in Art Center Purnu’s summer exhibition Pinta (surface).