PETRI HYTÖNENSomething about us... 12.9.2015 – 11.10.2015
Even though this isn´t about observing people, it´s about people.
People as characters,
silhouettes, the blotch that´s left after successfully swatting a fly - here
people are a part of the big picture - the big picture around me that I have
learnt to much appreciate.
Room, light, space, water,
oxygen, colour and cosmos - the whole planet in the universe as we understand
it to date. The cosmic beauty of existence unfolds unconditionally, fuelling my
subconscious as my conscious ego falls silent. Naturally, I view the latest
achievements in natural science and technology with admiration and wonder as I
seek to take them in.
I´ve begun to wonder about the essence of people, what they do to
themselves and to others. I try to see humanity as an external extra-terrestrial
being without relinquishing my own humanity.
Like an attempt to view it from afar
and at close hand. Our spirituality and animality live in a strange
co-existence like Ghandi and the Alien in the same body, destroying and
protecting our planet at the same time.
Nordic existentialism and expressionism are in the background supporting my
painting process. They pave the way to my inner self, which has grown up in a
time of pop, minimalist and postmodernism, to find something that questions in
the spirit of magic realism, romanticism, symbolism and colourism for my
painting terrain.
In a spirit where canvas has
replaced paper in this exhibition. My paintings are water colour on canvas. The
process has required a new approach to painting and given the painter the joy
of finding something new...
The sky, air, water and empty space form the backdrop for my paintings,
forcing aside the nightmare of materialistic junk and the feeling of happiness
it creates. The question is: what´s left?
Is it people with their personal
impressions who fill the void and versions of the people that the world today
has driven outside society?
How does humanism fare today
when humanity around us is driven by strict demands and ever stricter working
hours? Medieval serfs had more time to themselves than people do today.
Villages of tents on wasteland
eke out a meager existence in developed and developing countries in a world
fighting against overpopulation where the number of humans has increased to
almost 10 thousand million individuals….
Where is humanism today?
This is what I have asked myself
when painting inside in my study, where ground-source heat keeps my fingers
warm in the town, or when outside in the great outdoors, where the cold deviously
gradually sneaks inside my body.
Or abroad, on the peripheries of
the EU, where floods of refugees embellish the seashore and have sneaked into
my consciousness to stay.
The painting process does not question the painting itself, but humanity:
has Homo sapiens recently transformed
from a human into an ape, robot or a toy?
Or into a merciless terminator devoid
of its own values, a creation that destroys unknown individuals around it
without a grain of sense, constantly repeating the only truth that has been programmed
in the chip card implanted in its brainwashed mind - the terminator´s truth.
There it is, something about us, humanity, wretchedness and loveliness...
Porvoo, Petri Hytönen 17 August 2015