Venezia

Timo Vuorikoski has painted a series of fictional self-portraits. Having spent more than ten winters in Venice, Italy, the artist has identified with the lives of fishmongers and gondoliers, painting himself in new positions. The legendary city of Venice is widely known from tourist photographs and the jet-setting contemporary artworld elite. Vuorikoski, who enjoys the Venice winters, now shows us the city of the workers, the backyard aesthetics.

This does nothing to diminish Venice’s atmosphere, but rather deepens it. The wintery light is beautiful, the scenery rousing and the people charismatic.  We see performing artists having their break, a series of stylish accessories, a flooded bar and the most fabled views of Venice in various times of day.

Timo Vuorikoski has forged a long career as a portrait painter, painting portraits especially in his Venice studio. He is also known as a sharp-eyed modernist, whose paintings are relaxed in terms of technique but traditionally strict in terms of composition and colours.

Veikko Halmetoja curated Timo Vuorikoski’s exhibitions for Tampere’s Galleria Saskia in 2010 and 2015. The first exhibition centred on the winged lion symbolizing St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice, and the second one the Bible’s Book of Jonah. Vuorikoski also contributed to Roadmap, the 2018 Mänttä Art Festival again curated by Halmetoja. This exhibition featured a series of large paintings of European railway stations and railyards. This new exhibition in Gallery Halmetoja further solidifies Halmetoja’s and Vuorikoski’s collaboration.

“Gondolieri auringossa”, öljy kankaalle, 81 x 65 cm. 2020