Topi Ruotsalainen 15.5. - 6.6.2010

Curriculum Vitae (.pdf)

Travels Into Several Remote Nations Of The World

Note! Preview on Wednesday May 5th at 4 pm to 6 pm. Welcome!

Like Lemuel Gulliver* I hoped to enter an adventure someday. When I finally set off,
I ended up in the middle of several peculiar worlds.

My journey took me to the other side of the mundane everyday life, in the midst of great wonders. I met forms of governing that led into abandoning of individual thought. I saw countless tiny people, like game pieces in a sandbox. I had to witness the transformation of individuals into a mass, but to my fortune I also experienced that the mass is likewise individuals. I encountered an enormous collective rat race which was impregnated with threats of the world outside and the future. I saw the grand halls of the rich and the fields of honor of the brave. I also came across the need of a human being to belong, to be part of a crowd or community.

From my own ”Gulliver-perspective” I have now interpreted these worlds and the life, conventions and characteristics of their people.

Topi Ruotsalainen

Topi Ruotsalainen (b. 1979) graduated as a painter from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. The exhibition now opening, Ruotsalainen’s fifth solo show, is a continuation of his promising career. Topi Ruotsalainen’s latest output consists of paintings with his favorite subject of seemingly random crowds and groups of people. The key element in them is the relationships between the bodies depicted; the language of the body of an individual and a mass, as well as the relation of viewers to the groups in the paintings. In addition, one can find elements in the paintings that refer to current issues in today’s world. Topi Ruotsalainen was named as the Young Artist of the Summer in Salmela Art Centre in 2008 and several private and public collections have already obtained his works.

Thank you: Arts Council of Finland and The Cultural and Library Committee of Helsinki City

*Jonathan Swift: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. 1726

 

 

Crowd, 2009 oil on board, 80 x 95,5 cm	Wallflowers, 2010 oil on canvas, 90 x 115cm
Snowmen, 2010 oil on canvas, 97 x 140cm	Operation, 2010 oil on canvas, 95 x 150cm
Bad Cake, 2009 oil on canvas, 95 x 150cm	The Black Sheep, 2009 oil on canvas, 118 x 145cm
Night swimming, 2010 oil on canvas, 97 x 280cm	Cyclops, 2009 oil on canvas, 145 x 250cm
Azzurri contra rossi, 2009 oil on canvas, 150 x 200cm	Sheep flu, 2009 oil on canvas, 240 x 302 cm