And so he walked through the Great Garden of Colors, associating shapes and adding light, swaying in the wind from the hanging branches of old trees and looking out over the dark blue sea. The sky showed him paintings by old masters, in bright purple and gleaming black, large-scale tableaux with enormous scenes into which he sank. The waves threw up spray and driftwood and formed anew, the future and the past appeared to him, swallowing him and letting him sink onto the mountains. Deep above him it became dark and the sky broke open and the sun warmed him and the North Star nodded to him. He descended from the mountains singing, enraptured and carrying his head high, walked back into the Garden of Colors and trimmed the branches of the old trees, tamed the wind, caught the light and the shapes and tied them around his hand. And everyone he touched felt his story and sensed the innermost being that he had revealed.
From September 12th to November 7th, 2015, Lachenmann Art is dedicating a solo exhibition to the Finnish artist Jukka Rusanen, born in 1980. The painter, who lives and works in Lahti, Finland, is one of the most interesting contemporary artists in the far north.
It is Rusanen's fourth exhibition in Germany and marks another high point in the exhibition history of the Lachenmann Art Gallery. The works on display from 2008 to 2015 show the development of Rusanen's artistic creativity and productivity in a wonderful, very emotional way. His intense and at the same time extremely fragile and filigree work is an expression of a connection between aesthetics and conception that is unparalleled in contemporary painting.
Jukka Rusanen's large-format canvas works portray a moment, a gesture, a feeling. They refer to various elements of art history; forms, colors or structures can form the origin. The result is works that combine three-dimensionality and dynamism. Sublime style and passionate choice of colors captivate the viewer. Rusanen's works have an intense radiance that cannot be escaped. The viewer of the exhibition thus wanders through a spectrum of states of mind, which are sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, but always expressed directly and mercilessly. The high-contrast, harmonious compositions repeatedly manifest figurative, physical features of great aesthetics.
Through his lively brushwork and his direct tactile contact with the canvas, his self-reflective works also address the act of painting itself. Jukka Rusanen says of his painting that expression is at the heart of his work - a process of preparation and waiting that often stretches over weeks - culminating in that one, precious moment of purest intuition.
Numerous international solo and group exhibitions as well as purchases by renowned collections and museums provide an insight into the quality of his works and his high potential in the international art world.
