In Finnish

My work

I have secrets that I want to confess and disclose. I want to invite the viewer to take part in a surprising relationship, to set himself in a state of play. Similarly to how the lines of the self fade when you love someone, my desire is for the viewer to allow himself to blend in with the work.

A work is not just a visual representation, but more akin to a mediator between prayer and hope. The image should not be defined solely by its aesthetic properties, but rather by the overall impression it gives. Appearance and style are important to me, and although I aim to produce visually interesting work, work that creates mood through style, and meaning through form, the true meaning of my work remains rooted in the unseen.

I portray visions and images hidden behind the visible world. Images emerge from somewhere beyond consciousness and connect with our material reality, then continue and carry the imagination and emotions far beyond this plane of existence. To an extent, these images operate in something of a dream world lodged somewhere in the mysterious hidden depths of the mind, giving unconscious impulses and premonitions for our consciousness to interpret.

A mundane, visible reality is allowed to blend with ideas and emotions, with the transcendental and the internal. These in turn require the consent of the viewer to be exposed to influences and an active process of allowing the mind to flow freely, eked on by unknown forces. Hereby I proclaim both objectivity and scientific precision to be banned completely.

Images are not mathematical problems for the soul to solve, but rather like visions that flutter hazily on the borders of consciousness, without ever fully revealing themselves. Untouched, indestructible and polyphonic, they gently whisper and suggest meanings.

In a world of excessive rationalism and secularism I hope that I can offer a place of refuge, where the anxiety of existence and the conflicts between dreams and reality, between spirit and matter, are given a momentary rest.

This is not escapism or indifference towards reality. For me, the only thing worth studying is the human condition. It is meaningful through the creation of awareness, understanding, character, identity: in short, all that involves being human. The only real development should take place within the individual, and not in his tools.

I prefer to turn to making these images, making use of my own internal feelings rather than clumsily attempting to portray some outside reality.

Most of my heroes are dead, but they are alive to me through their works. I have strong ties to many of them. Man is said to benefit from his reactions when subjected to art. In my case, I can openly say that my images owe their existence to those who have inspired me.

Tradition does not prevent the emergence of "new" art, but rather enrich it. My works are voiced utterances in an infinitely long debate. Not loans, but interacting, inter-relatively suggestive works. Signs that gather meaning through their relation to larger systems. Art as such can not be taught, but learning what has come before us can be useful. The story is old, but it goes on.

I recall the feeling I had the first time I encountered them. These works arose before me, I reached out and allowed them to wander through my consciousness. My soul was caressed by a mysterious, unexplained and intriguing sound. We looked at each other. They were spiritually rich and refined my sensibility. Between us, nothing was tactless or clumsy. I was demure, fragile and vulnerable, but still I surrendered to complete capitulation and enchantment.

They made my breath shorten and heart beat faster, so that all the blood seemed to rush to my chest and made me feel frail. My eyes, full of an admiration almost approaching worship, were directed towards them. Worship, which seemed to mutter, how beautiful you all are, how lovable and how amazing.

The images awoke in me comprehensive emotions ranging from spiritual upheaval to physical convulsions, made me want to caress, touch, and aroused in me a tingling sensation and desire. They moved me physically with their sensual glow, combining the bliss of the hereafter with a strongly present erotic desire, bodily and charged.

My sighs were deep and melodious. Within them, emotions stirred. My heart seemed to be proclaiming in a deep, beautiful voice, without a shred of doubt: Do not worry, no reason to do so. They were not proud or dominant, nor commanding, but gentle and affectionate, enveloping me in their glow and offering me emotion, mercy, comfort, passion and compassion. I have nothing to declare, I do not know how to teach anyone anything, but ideally, I hope that I can at least transmit the feeling.

I do not want to control, tame, possess, conquer or imprison my work after it's completion. No rules should restrain the encounter between the viewer and the work. Their relationship should be reciprocal to the extent in which both sides are equal and own each other evenly.

Everything has many faces and masks. I am opposed to categorization and call for the perception of diversity. The love of the individual passes through all structures. We all perceive the world with our own eyes, and the information we have gathered is specific and subjective. The imagination is in itself a process of forming knowledge, of activating our minds.

I do not believe there is such a thing as imagination or dreaming which is not inherently or secretly melancholic. In the same way as many works of art, the imagination and dream, however, provide fertile grounds for devotion. Such things as withdrawal, a room of one's own, a mental space, silence and concentration are needed to counter the creative and active. Imagination and the dream muffle the chains of reason, its longing eyes, its yearning blood and its silent rage.

Tonight, like many nights before, sleep again wraps me in its luminescence, quiet and restful in its silence. I am overtaken by profound emotional upheaval. Immediate memories, experiences and aspirations well up and over me so that I can not prevent a sudden transition to a new world.

Sleep comes like a friend, without condemning anyone, simply opening its arms. The restless rising of the bosom gives way to the warmth of the embrace and its gentle pace. Archives normally beyond the reach of consciousness open up. I see pictures, names and memories float by above me. The landscape is filled with nuances, shades of variation, as well as fragments and unnamed details.

I observe soft light filtering through cloudlike formations. A delicate flame and a secret blushing burns my cheeks. I move forward, treading blissfully soft and lightly sweet. Tonight, everything is sophisticated and glamorous. I breathe in calmly and watch order, tranquility and pleasure walk hand in hand.

There are times when setbacks and the overwhelming swell of the outside world combined with the internal contradictions of life poison the mind. Our unselfish dreams mutate into limited, sad and excessive introspection, which leads only to misery and tribulations, to depression and silence.

The air smells of evening. The mind and body are swinging and unbalanced, open to unpredictable changes, losses and shock. My self and voice are missing. A black sun lights the sky and does not give off heat. In everything, even in beauty, a tragic dimension is present; one of suffering, longing, and tragedy. Like Janus, with his two faces, one crying and one smiling.

I encourage a shift towards quiet greatness, a Stoic calmness of the spirit. An aristocracy of the heart, one that has the ability to see life in an extremely warm and subtle way, and one not deterred by any kind of violence, witticism or unsavoury asides.

Mourning should, in fact, never become bitterness, coarseness or roughness. Sadness can also be soothing, soft and beautiful, similarly to how joy is beautiful and inspiring. The heart may at times be mute and its sound discordant, but still noble in its unfailing decision not to be subjected without dissent, and to be able to feel real feelings and acts by the strength of its will.

It is my wish that one could sense a kind of higher melancholy from my images, a nostalgic sadness and an emotional ambivalence or volatility. Projections of darkness, above which, however and nevertheless, a great peace reigns - an invitation to fight on behalf of the power of life.

Ville Andersson

Black, white and a few figures

Ville Andersson's (1986) recent work is divided into two parts, one consisting of staged photographs and the second of paintings based on photographs. Both kinds portray people, some of which become familiar through spending time with the works, because, like Andy Warhol, Andersson also has his own superstars. Similarly to Warhol's stars, these anderssonian stars create their own reality, and their faces become icons. I mean icons in the sense of idols. Their faces seem exposed to our admiration, yet something remains unattainable. They are partly hidden and therefore so mysterious.

Andersson's models live in their own world, and it is a place we can see, but into which we can not enter. Is it autism, loneliness, melancholy, or is their inherent mystique the true state of these images? Roland Barthes (1915-1980) wrote in an essay how Greta Garbo's Divine face was always perfect and always singularly her own. Barthes noted the oft-quoted idea, that Garbo's face is an idea, whereas Audrey Hepburn's face is an event. Faced with Andersson works, I see the idea merging together with the event. This impression is in some way associated with the names the artist chooses for his works. For instance, Passage implies both the name of an action or an experience, but also a dramatic element in itself.

Charm and mystique are characterizing features of the films, other cultural products or artists Andersson has used as starting points. Whether it's Bryan Ferry's specifically British brand of Dandyism or the perpetually open wound-like feel Louise Bourgeouis' works, Andersson has chosen the objects and subjects of his fandom maturely and with great care. I am repeatedly captured by his images, like a fly on flypaper, and find myself asking: who is it who's really portrayed in the image? What's going on here? The artist himself has highlighted the fact that his desire is to invite the viewer to engage in a state of play. This is not simply communication, but rather a reciprocal relationship in which the artworks and the audience face each other. The possibility of change is built into the process, but the public must surrender to it, and they must be humble in the same way as the artist, stretching himself out toward us.

Black & White World

Andersson's paintings are characterized by the use of black and white, but whether it is used to made time stand still or for the neutralization of the flow of time remains undefined. I am thinking of something which is reflected in the classical aspects of his photographs. Is Andersson looking for distinguishing features between this world and the hereafter? Or are we dealing with a dream world, one perceived by some as black and white, and by others in colour ? On the other, in the world of negatives colour has yet to appear, so black and white is an expectant state that precedes colour. What about the relationship of black and white to the tradition of Dandyism, in which style is more important than the slavish representation of reality? Could this also explain Andersson colourless black and white world?

The small scale of many the artist's works catches my attention. They appear to be almost compressed, or some kind of voces intimae. Or are they more like altars towards which yo can turn to pursue meditation and other kinds of worship? This altar-like presentation is highlighted the exhibition by the way some of the paintings are placed in the middle of draped paper like jewels in jewelry boxes, or other rare and attractive objects. The surface of the paintings is treated with a high glossy sheen, and one is even covered with broken glass. Broken glass or gloss sheen may possibly be interpreted as a reference to the passage of time, or seen as a gesture towards creating something of an installation, by which the paintings are sent to the outside world for people to see.

With many of the works, their serial quality forge the theme towards a world governed by its own laws. A triptych can be based on a friend of the artist, or even Anne Wiazemsky's face, but during the working process both become marked by Andersson. The faces become his raw material and the black and white approach transports the thoughts of the viewer somewhere beyond the present moment and the "models" that inhabit it. Black and white bleeds out the colour and sends us to another reality, where the colour is gone. Our observations of that which remains and that which is absent become dramatized. We begin to see the colours without colour, or at least see the lack of them, and in doing so we have already begun the journey towards the heightening of our senses.

Beauty and horror

Let us examine what forces operate in the background of Andersson works. Some of the works play with the imagery of anxiety or horror. The relationship between beauty and horror can be seen as a route towards the oppressive. Horror can be understood as the finishing touches of beauty. Equally horrifying is the truth of absolute beauty, after which no hope exists - not for life, or even death outside of that beauty. There is no mercy in beauty, as the most beautiful scenes of any given film are self-contained in themselves, they are self-sufficient and nothing else exists outside of them. In this regard, beauty is not unlike madness, because in the end they share a similar uniformity of expanding logic that devours any other order within it's reach. Let me illustrate. The British artist Louis Wain (1860-1939) drew cats throughout his career, but their appearance varied dramatically. The more Wain "sank into madness", the more demonic and the demonic-looking the cats became. A cute pussycat cat was eventually transformed into a psychotic cat.

The horrifying nature of beauty also appears in another way in Andersson's works. That which some call "advertiment-like" has been turned around. A "sellable" appearance does not mean lighter content, but rather hides something difficult, such as death, loneliness, claustrophobia and such things behind it's surface. The same feature applies to the seemingly polished world of the paintings. Upon closer inspection one detects the presence of a post-Fall world in the paintings. Death seasons beauty, and for everything there is a time. Melancholia is the mind of beauty, as Julia Kristeva has said. Ville Andersson provides the public with the beauty of the transient or a taste of death, according to the rules of product demonstration. And we, the viewers, get caught within beauty, if indeed we dare face it.

FT Juha-Heikki Tihinen