galleria heino

Pasi Tammi 2.9.-25.9. 2005

Since his debut exhibition in 1995, artist Pasi Tammi has drawn on a meeting of the technical principles of the Old Masters and today’s visual imagery and the conceptions of modern art with regard to presentation and representativeness. The defining characteristic of his work can be found in what he has forcefully and convincingly expressed with his imagery grounded in aesthetics: the state of being human – without compromise. He has shown man at his most vulnerable. The theme is still reflected in Tammi’s work; although his most recent paintings no longer feature figures, he continues to examine the human state through increasingly symbolic means and with more surrealist overtones.

The press release for the exhibition was written by art historian Sari Kuuva who examined the art of Pasi Tammi in her 2002 graduate thesis at the University of Jyväskylä (http://selene.lib.jyu.fi:8080/gradu/h/sakuuva.pdf)

Rauli Heino

Double Exposures from the Borders of Realities

In the latest works of Pasi Tammi, people have left the stage leaving behind hints of their existence: apples left uneaten, abandoned objects and dimly lit rooms reigned by shadows. The dreamlike pictures and their tense atmosphere take place in moments open to endless narrative possibilities. The recurring themes, candles and a chair adventuring alone create stories between pictures.

These works, more simplified than the previous ones, yet still picturesque, give imagination wings. Existentialist questions arise from beneath the aesthetic surface: What lies beyond the borders of realities? What is the relationship between the persistence of a memory and life lived? Does a person’s identity match the way it is seen by others? Rich shadows and reflections create a kind of double exposure to the pictures as different levels of time, external reality and internal experience become intertwined.

The play between overlapping realities strengthens the surrealistic tone of Tammi’s paintings. Surrealism, however, is nothing but one layer combined as it is with reminiscences of art from various eras – from the fiery floods of Medieval damnation to the Romantic sublimation of nature and from the mystical states of mind associated with Symbolism to the mirrors, fading flowers, and decaying fruit of the “vanitas” theme. As a painter, Tammi successfully integrates a unique approach to timeless fantasy art traditions.

Sari Kuuva
Art Historian