KIMMO PYYKKÖSculptures 5.5.2011 – 29.5.2011

This exhibition presents new bronze sculptures by Kimmo Pyykkö that reflect the spirit of his famous aluminium sculptures of the 1970s, as well as sculptures and murals crafted out of alder.​​

Pyykkö´s bronze sculptures are still life compositions. They represent objects and animals such as ravens, falcons, small birds and butterflies. He uses a lot of ready material, existing old chairs, beds, shoes, gloves, paint brushes, musical instruments and bags. Like still lifes, Pyykkö´s sculptures are carefully constructed sets, the sums of their parts, in which the parts refer to each other.

The old objects used by Pyykkö include memories themselves; they have traces of people. Pyykkö gives the objects new life. When casting them in bronze and when his works receive a uniform patina, the temporal becomes timeless, the material becomes intangible, and the here and now becomes the past and gone.

In his enormous alder works Pyykkö uses floor space and in his painting-like works rusty iron wire that is like a tracing on paper on the stained wood surface: landscape space as a creative line or a written work describing the story of life.

The mood of Pyykkö´s bronze and wooden sculptures is poetic but sad. Pyykkö has said about his art that he is a man of dark tones and is interested in life´s turning points. These turning points are often related to the inevitable laws of life, to unpredictability and surprise, to the passage of time and its end.

Pyykkö is a storyteller, someone who describes basic human feelings and deals with the fundamental questions of life. His works are beautiful and heavily charged. The message conveyed in his art is simplistic and sentimental. With its message of transience, Pyykkö´s art emphasises the value of life.

Rauli Heino