Reima Nevalainen: Body of Water
Reima Nevalainen’s recent paintings evince his deepening interest in landscape painting alongside his existing fascination with figure studies. His nature imagery functions both as the backdrop for his figures as well as a metaphor for the human body, which consists of water and is hence dependent upon it. In his paintings, the human body is inseparable from nature and its water cycles, proving to flourish better in damp caves than under the scorching sun. In Nevalainen’s art, humans are comparable to water, also in their inherent formlessness. Freedom from solid form is the theme that has also appeared in his earlier work. For Nevalainen, painting is both a process of learning free expression liberated from all mannerisms and searching for perfect, non-conceptual abstraction through representational form.
Nevalainen blurs the line between humans, animals and all other nature. He does the same with internal and external space, object and nature, the recognizable and the unrecognizable. Small becomes big and big becomes small. He dispenses with human-centric scale and hierarchy – human bodies instead become long-limbed insects, their bodies transformed into secret wildernesses. Reality is more wondrous in itself than mythologies or legends invented to embellish the truth of existence. The harmony that comes with living in the moment is not necessarily a condition of pure bliss; harmony is also the shocked acknowledgment of what is going on around us.
Reima Nevalainen (b. 1984) graduated as a painting major from Kankaanpää Art School in 2008. He was chosen as Finland’s Young Artist of the Year in 2016. He has held numerous solo exhibitions in Finland and throughout Europe, the US, and Japan. His work is held in Finland’s leading museums, including HAM Helsinki Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. The artist lives and works in Porvoo.
