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Tuukka Tammisaari: Bit of a Pickle

March 23–April 24, 2023

Intro

Portrait of the artist. photo Angel Gil

Born in Lahti 1984 | Lives and works in Helsinki

 

Tuukka Tammisaari’s oil paintings cover a wide spectrum ranging from cheeky playfulness to heavy monochrome. The artist describes art-making is his way of compiling an inventory of certain thoughts, events, stories, and feelings. Searching for the new and the unknown is both a perpetual challenge and source of inspiration for Tammisaari, whose work is informed by the legacy of western painting and allusions to art history.

Viewing Room VoW

Tuukka Tammisaari
Camo Cabaret, 2023
Oil, oil stick and acrylic on canvas
180 x 230 cm /71x 91 in
TTAM_259

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Tuukka Tammisaari
Rendang Rendezvous, 2022-2023
Oil, oil stick, charcoal, colored pencil and gesso on canvas
180 x 230 cm /71x 91 in
TTAM_260

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Tuukka Tammisaari
The Forgiving Machine, 2023
Oil, oil stick, alkyd and gesso on canvas
180 x 230 cm /71 x 91 in
TTAM_261

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Tuukka Tammisaari's highly recognizable visual idiom has grown even richer in his recent paintings, which exude a sincere spirit of joy and free creativity.  His canvases radiate an exuberant energy that penetrates directly into the viewer’s subconscious. His breathtaking expressive vigor explodes on the canvas in a giddying imaginative spectrum of dynamic elements. Their multi-layered anatomy finds a perfect companion in his distinctive palette of inflected hues. His compositions are a riot of orderly anarchy that is always surprising but makes perfect sense precisely by virtue of its non-linearity and absence of logic.

 

His paintings are simultaneously informed by the intense presence in the contemporary moment and conscious allusions to movements in art history. Their style vacillates between the abstract and the representational, straddling the middle ground between something recognizable and something wholly unfamiliar. Surrealistic and even mystical elements have crept into his recent works, elevating their content to a new meta-level. His paintings seem to convey a collective experience, yet each one writes its own story, both on the abstract and physically experienced level. Tammisaari’s style of expression is purely intuitive. When he picks up the brush, he has no idea what will appear on the canvas. His process is indeed painting at its purest.

Viewing Room VoW

Tuukka Tammisaari
Setup 23, 2023
Oil, oil stick, colored pencil and gesso on canvas
150 x 180 cm /59 x 71 in
TTAM_281

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Tuukka Tammisaari
Small Setup, 2018-2023
Oil, oil stick, graphite and charcoal on paper
76 x 56 cm /30 x 22 in
TTAM_274

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Tuukka Tammisaari
Concerto for Crickets, 2023
Oil, oil stick, charcoal and colored pencil on canvas
150 x 180 cm /59 x 701 in
TTAM_263

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The basic geometrical shapes in his paintings are destabilized by the incursion of asymmetrical organic forms that obviously evoke nature. When these mismatched forms and colors collide, the result is either jarring or perfect in its synergy. His paintings are characterized by their earthy, inflected palette and their shifting emotive content ranging from the playful to the contemplative. A new element in his work is brighter range of hues that have recently begun to appear on his canvas.

 

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