Reima Nevalainen: Syncope
Reima Nevalainen鈥檚 (b. 1984) collage paintings are based on real, perceptible things, yet the universe they portray is one of the multisensory dimensions. Their content revolves around contrasting elements: humans and nature; light and darkness; abstraction and form. The human figures in his ascetic paintings are intertwined with nature and the animal kingdom 鈥� they grow, change and languish as part of the natural world around them. The emotions readable in their gestures and expressions are at once cathartic and ecstatic at the wonder of being subsumed within nature鈥檚 great cycle.
The title of the exhibition, Syncope, is the medical term for fainting. The artist likens this to the condition of suddenly stopping in one鈥檚 tracks, after which reality appears naked, stripped of the veil of language and the associations evoked by the conceptual categories through which we give shape to our existence. The space between the paintings, too, is like a sudden loss of consciousness or memory loss concealing many forgotten layers and images. For Nevalainen painting marks an attempt to fight the inevitable forgetting of ideas, images, dreams and experiences; it is a way of articulating reality within the limited confines of our sensory perceptions. Painting gives a material form to the unexpected; memory is torn into pieces and recombined in new configurations on the canvas. An artist must be alert to capture this fragmentary stream of mental impressions; in Nevalainen鈥檚 oeuvre, his attention to minutiae is manifest dually in rapid, urgent brushstrokes paired with a patient, slow process. Although it is impossible for any single painting to recapture all that is forgotten, each painting is a significant fragment in a great atlas of remembrance, each work occupying its own place as an irreplaceable piece in a greater puzzle.
Reima Nevalainen鈥檚 (b. 1984) collage paintings are based on real, perceptible things, yet the universe they portray is one of the multisensory dimensions. Their content revolves around contrasting elements: humans and nature; light and darkness; abstraction and form. The human figures in his ascetic paintings are intertwined with nature and the animal kingdom 鈥� they grow, change and languish as part of the natural world around them. The emotions readable in their gestures and expressions are at once cathartic and ecstatic at the wonder of being subsumed within nature鈥檚 great cycle.
The title of the exhibition, Syncope, is the medical term for fainting. The artist likens this to the condition of suddenly stopping in one鈥檚 tracks, after which reality appears naked, stripped of the veil of language and the associations evoked by the conceptual categories through which we give shape to our existence. The space between the paintings, too, is like a sudden loss of consciousness or memory loss concealing many forgotten layers and images. For Nevalainen painting marks an attempt to fight the inevitable forgetting of ideas, images, dreams and experiences; it is a way of articulating reality within the limited confines of our sensory perceptions. Painting gives a material form to the unexpected; memory is torn into pieces and recombined in new configurations on the canvas. An artist must be alert to capture this fragmentary stream of mental impressions; in Nevalainen鈥檚 oeuvre, his attention to minutiae is manifest dually in rapid, urgent brushstrokes paired with a patient, slow process. Although it is impossible for any single painting to recapture all that is forgotten, each painting is a significant fragment in a great atlas of remembrance, each work occupying its own place as an irreplaceable piece in a greater puzzle.
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