My goal has been, in one way or another, to make my environment more aesthetic – while evoking thoughts and feelings in my fellow human beings through my work and artistic vision. Of course, alongside of my successes, not all of the results have always been very flattering, but results nonethless.
I began my artistic endeavours / career in the late 1980s, when the first wave of graffiti struck our country, and still continue on that path: sometimes as a commissioned interior and urban artist – sometimes more or less self-employed. Through the painting, I also found my way into the graphic arts and multimedia industry in the late 1990s.
I work mainly as an illustrator, musician and street painter. During the last few years I have designed and implemented for example more than 30 environmental artworks on power distribution cabinets and power stations around the city of Lahti on a commission by Lahti Energy. Other urban works have included for example a series of eight large roadside advertisement paintings, in addition to which I have carried out a multitude of public and private surfaces indoors and outdoors mostly around Finland. This kind of working in an public space has been the core of my practise for over 30 years and a way of making my work easily, and even forcefully, accessible for people and some kind of a part of our culture.
In the light of my own artist history, urban and environmental art, which is currently undergoing a major upheaval, and its rise from a very marginal subculture to as a circus of the whole nation, creates very mixed feelings in me. On the other hand, the acceptability and visibility of the works has increased exponentially, and through this for example, holding exhibitions has become a viable opportunity and a way to advance my career. On the other side of the coin, as for being criminalized for many years because of the artistic work I’ve been doing, the new found success of the urban art, the “everyone can do it” attitude and quite often the communal label and a “must-have” by-product of every city event and carnival feels like a mockery of the years I’ve been dedicating to the artwork. Hobby opportunities for people are of course great, but it can get quite difficult as an artist to promote myself and get commission works when the mentality in the public is that any “Sunday hobbyists” is capable of painting a mural for example, and it seems that many of the times the outcome of the work isn’t even that important for the customer but the idea of having “whatever” being painted by anyone and riding the wave of the success of the mural boom.
Our environment is in a state of constant fermentation, and if the aesthetic considerations and solutions are not taken into consideration when designing the spaces that make up our lives, we will soon find, if not already do, that we are living in a very harsh environment with no room for creative and spiritual growth. I see this kind of situation as an extremely
detrimental to a happier, more energetic and ecological urban space.
ViCCA PRODUCTION 