Sami Lukkarinen 1.9.-23.9.2007

Curriculum Vitae (.pdf)

After the turn of the millennium, broadband internet, digital cameras, web cams and camera phones began to become more common. Digital images and image processing, together with pictures and text that could be sent around the world in real time, began to change our relationship with images. The internet became a reality for many. Anyone could post a self-portrait, a self-image even, in an internet picture gallery or at a video community for all to see.

In his 2001 exhibition, the artist Sami Lukkarinen first showed images he had discovered on the internet, pixellated and then painted onto canvas. His subject then was functionalist architecture. Modern Finnish church architecture, spam and internet picture galleries later followed. In this new exhibition, he continues his examination of picture gallery images.

His paintings have been described as impressionistic, kinetic and reverse pointillist in turn but Lukkarinen himself prefers to refer to them, not as photo realism but as photoshop realism: "I treat the digital image the way a traditional painter treats reality." In other words, what he presents here are images of images.

Rauli Heino

 

Alicia, 2005 oil on canvas 170 x 87cm		Krista 86, 2006 oil on canvas 157 x 80cm
Vaahtopoika, 2006 oil on acrylic glass 54 x 45cm		Nemonic, 2006 oil on acrylic glass 66 x 63cm
E-lovena, 2006 oil on canvas 117 x 138cm		Milla, 2006 oil on canvas 177 x 126 cm
Eevertti, 2006 oil on canvas 144 x 177 cm		Daaduli, 2007 oil on canvas 152 x 188 cm
Tipsu 80, 2007 oil on canvas 174 x 156 cm		Dirty Tupi, 2007 oil on canvas 198 x 87 cm
no.7, 2007 oil on canvas 228 x 148 cm		Angel ehkä Devi, 2007 oil on canvas 110 x 80 cm
Steel Vagina, 2007 oil on canvas triptyykki: 168 x 105 180 x 135 159 x 132 cm

Enlarge by clicking the image. Press images are available at the gallery.