At the core of Kari Vehosalo’s art is the tradition of humanism; in other words, a genuine interest in the complexity of human life. Vehosalo aims to respond to this diversity with imagery that makes us think about questions related to human existence and the power of the gaze. Vehosalo’s monochromatic paintings ooze restrained drama and emphasize the spontaneous world of the works, where a tension is created by the friction between the private and the social.

Vehosalo’s art gives form to the mutually shared abstract social reality. Social norms, caring, work, death, pleasure and pain are present in his art but as detached from the familiar meanings. The theatrical collapse of human practices, language and symbols are depicted in Vehosalo’s works, often in closed rooms or stage-like settings, where normal practices turn into strange rituals and human desires in their many forms of cultural expression have become dysfunctional and are reconfigured.

Vehosalo’s pictorial language plays with the sense of reality by representing things and worlds that are true, but not real. By process of alienation his artistic practise enables the re-evaluation of the ontological map that we hold up against the world.

*Kari Vehosalo (b. 1982 Finland) graduated as a visual artist from Lahti University of Applied Sciences and as a master of arts from the University of Applied Arts. His works are in several important collections: e.g. Kiasma – Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art, Sara Hildén Art Museum, HAM – Helsinki Art Museum. Vehosalo won the Ars Fennica award, Finland’s most prestigious art award, in 2017. He was awarded the William Thuring main prize 2023 for his artistic work.