Palosuo in town

An exhibition by Hannu Palosuo, the Finnish painter sharing his time between Rome and Helsinki I posted about here, was just in town at the Auran Galleria. Needless to say, I made it to the show on the last day even though the art gallery is located very close to where we live. My main excuse is my last-minute disposition, of course. But it didn’t help that the exhibition only lasted for three weeks.

There were a few dozen paintings on display representing several of Palosuo’s thematic series from recent years. The most impressive of them were the two large floral arrangements above entitled Vanitas vanitatum (2015) as a reference to the 16th and 17th century ‘vanitas’ still lifes. They were painstakingly painted on Brazilian coffee sacks salvaged from a café in Rome. In fact, the artist had consulted a leading Roman conservator-restorer to work out a ground enabling painting on the coarse but loosely woven fabric in the first place.

The above pieces from the series What remains is tomorrow (2015) with the bright object and a shadow of something completely different beautifully combine the notion of a busy present with that of a serene memory.

I particularly liked the paintings from the series Talkin’ loud sayin’ nothing (2016) above. Any of them would look fabulous on anyone’s wall.

So would the small ones from the series The empty realm of dreams (2016) above.

In general, a monochrome scheme – such as in the series Through a looking glass (2015) above – or anything too neutral coloured doesn’t appeal to me that much. Now I quite surprised myself as the rather large piece with the young boy sitting on the bottom corner was one of my favourites in the show.

Lastly, a couple of paintings from the series I honour you for keeping secret some things (2014) (above) and the chandelier from the series Today is the frightening tomorrow of yesterday (below). The exhibition showed a comprehensive selection of Hannu Palosuo’s current work. Despite the price range from €1,100 to €12,000 it was also a commercial success for the celebrated artist.