Ville Kylätasku: What Does Anything Mean? Basically
Galerie Forsblom, 28.10–20.11.2022
In his new exhibition, Ville Kylätasku focuses his gaze on inner, intimate aspects of the human condition. Spirit and matter, consciousness and corporeality, thought and experience, self and otherness, desire and being desired, presence and absence, the visible and the invisible—these and many other existential opposites are fused in the form and content of his art. Addressing timeless existential questions through a lens of humanist inquiry, Kylätasku’s paintings reflect on what it fundamentally means to be human.
Kylätasku harnesses emotion as a tool to explore questions at the core of humanity. Perceptions – and the experiences and feelings they evoke – are born at the crossroads between the visible and the invisible. The figures in Kylätasku’s paintings straddle this intersection, taking shape in the interface between metaphysics and reality. The rhythmic dance of opposites is appealing and discomforting in equal measures. The key to unlocking the meaning of the paintings lies in the intimacy, compassion and vulnerability of the emotions they weave together.
Kylätasku’s paintings are timeless and sensuous in their aesthetic sensibility. They evoke a variety of emotional responses through their philosophical contemplation of matter, materiality and immateriality. The sense of touch, for instance, is not inherently material, yet without materiality, tactile experience would be impossible. The paintings also allude to the ethics of reciprocity: we reap as we sow – the consequences of our actions eventually return to us. According to Kylätasku, nobody is ever completely detached and solitary, for everything around us is part of us.
Ville Kylätasku (b. 1979) studied art and design at the Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts. His work is found in collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Artists’ Association of Finland, the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art and the Hort Collection in New York. The artist is based in Berlin.