Galleries/Venues

“The classification of artists in the art world is demolished – whether it is material, techniques or styles, artists no longer can be categorised. There no longer seems to be generation differences either – nor a gap between them. Traditions haven’t disappeared anywhere, but the older have long learned from the younger.
“I had an exhibition coming and I was very busy. I asked Minnamari to make some parts for the structures of my work and I noticed her doing some of it better than I would of done it.” says Suntio. “Now we are here as equal colleagues.”

It’s hard to define the type of art that Heimo Suntio (born 1955) or Minnamari Toukola (born 1982) are doing. Suintio as a young artist was a constructive painter but later on hasn’t despised any tools for his art: his installations may consist of cast bronze, photographs, videos or objects he has found. Toukola graduated as a painter from the Academy of Visual Arts – Kuvataideakatemia, but most of his work have more sculpturistic features. He makes new use of old materials that might be just some garbage found on the street. Undoubtedly the background is partly in material esthetics, but perhaps a piece of string found on the street can awake a desire to find its soul – just as a carpenter sometimes tries to find the soul of the tree. For Toukola the inspiring thing is rather the open-endness and intangible elements.

“Conseptual shifts are hard to understand or to express”, has Ludvig Wittgenstein once said. That is exactly what Suntio and Toukola are doing. They both tend to re-use material but from different perspectives. Suntio might include some literal elements and meaningful utensils in his work where as Toukola likes to “change material into another, when it’s character no longer is involved”, says Suntio.
Both Suntio and Toukola are conceptual as artists, but besides grammar also poetical theory can be found in the background and eventually makes the shifts possible. A piece of work is never just a straight picture of the idea. Both artists are also very talented and diligent artisans. “Hands are at work all the time”, says Toukola, which also strengthens the shift. The form becomes a vital part of the content without being just a clinic realization.

The artists also share the attitude that both of they recognise in each other. Suntio says: “I like his way of existing and how it is linked to his art. There is something great in that totality: he is unconditional and sophisticated at the same time. For usually it is the foolishness that goes hand in hand with unconditionality.” I could say the same about Suntio whom I have known since 1990’s. Would this be a metashift which would offer a fruitful perspective to think over their work.”

Otso Kantokorpi
The writer is a free critic and curator