Johyun Gallery Seoul is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Pertti Kekarainen. Kekarainen is associated with “Helsinki School”, which has been gaining its international recognition in the field of fine arts as a leading group of photographers representing Helsinki. His works have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries throughout Europe, the United States and Northeast Asia, and are included in many prominent museum and public collections. The exhibition at Johyun Gallery features photographs from his series ‘TILA’ and ‘Density’, focusing on multi-interpretative nature of space that is unique and ambiguous.

In Finnish language, the word ‘tila’ is used loosely in defining space, place, state or position. It can also translate to an architectural or interior space, distance between objects, area inside a room, a farm, a circumstance or condition as well as a state of mind. The variety of meanings and various dimensions of the word allow for political, sociological, and cultural interpretations.

In ‘TILA’ series, Kekarainen photographs interior spaces that are often empty or captures glimpses of human presences. Human perception, the way we experience and understand what we see, has been a significant theme in his work. The spaces in his photographs are disrupted by colored spots and fields, which relate to our perception and experience of space. The way we perceive space does not rely on our eyes only; the whole experience is influenced by such elements as size and use of the space, materials the space is composed of, objects and lights contained in the space, or traces of what exists or existed. Instead of mimicking the reality as it looks, Kekarainen takes sense of space, depth and dimension away, employing pictorial devices of contemporary painting to photographs, and creates optical illusion and varying visual perspectives.

Kekarainen’s photographs from ‘Density’ series are intensely silent, if not well-night mute. What we see behind translucent veils through punctured spy holes is a disconcertingly ordinary and characterless space. Sometimes when we daydream and stare hazily into a distance beyond mundane objects within our immediate field of vision, it seems as though we suddenly grasp everything more lucidly and fully than ever before. Perhaps, that is the moment Kekarainen captures in his photographs.