Maalaus Rules O.K.

Kim Somervuori is a material romantic, whose exhibitions typically include installations, assemblages and large series of drawings.

This is different. Somervuori goes back to the beginnings, having produced an exhibition of paintings which prove that his roots are in perfect shape. Although Somervuori is a painter, his paintings have been seen far too rarely.

The gallery is filled with rhythmically hanging paintings of various sizes, with colours and surface playing the lead roles. The recognisable line, important for Somervuori, also breaks forward and textual references to literature and music are not forgotten. Somervuori is a cultivated visual artist whose knowledge of cultural history extends far beyond his own genre.

However, the art of painting in the 1900s is the most important context for the new works, which reflect deep modernist enjoyment of painting, as an entity free from references. It is linked to the visual world of the 2000s in a way unique for the context of traditional art of painting. Somervuori truly controls the pictorial surface, layout and details included, but knows how to connect it with such a controlled network of references that it does not suffocate the work of art in any way, but subtly supports it.

Kim Somervuori (born in 1975) graduated from Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts in 2012, and studied at Vårdingeby folkhögskolan in Stockholm in 2005–2006. His work is included in several collections, but a particularly large entity is included in the collection donated by Seppo Fränti to Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.