Lassi Kontiainen: Avoin sija

Lassi Kontiainen’s paintings draw on religious pictorial traditions. Rather than determining the content of his works, however, this influence is evident above all in the way his compositions are constructed. Kontiainen employs compositional principles found across different pictorial traditions, in which the upper and lower parts, as well as the centre, are invested with distinct meanings. The upper section may be associated with the heavenly and immaterial, while the lower part may evoke the earthly and material.

In Kontiainen’s works, these structural references do not point to any single, fixed meaning. Instead, they form a visual language that can be read in different ways, depending on the viewer’s individual frame of experience. The paintings in this exhibition depict recognisable planks, boards, and homespun timber structures. The artist likens their construction to the assembly of a makeshift hut. Built up layer by layer through repeated drawing and redrawing, his paintings follow a logic of assembly and modification akin to that of self-made structures. In this way, Kontiainen makes the process of artistic creation visible within the very language of his paintings. Rendered in a sketch-like style, the works reveal how a structured image can emerge from tentative lines, successive layers, and repeated corrections.

With a major in painting, Lassi Kontiainen (b. 1999) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2025. He has exhibited in Finland at venues including the St Henry’s Ecumenical Art Chapel in Turku and Lokal Galleria in Helsinki, and has also participated in exhibitions in Hong Kong and Budapest. His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, HUS Helsinki University Hospital, and the Finnish Students’ Art Association.