After an all too long brake from his artistic work, Kaunisto has returned with an updated set of ideas and concepts. Behind are the humorous and provocative, multilayered, vivid paintings, jammed with characters and events familiar from pop culture. The new works continue to be highly expressive, but instead of picking up on where he left off, he has now entered an isolated and lonely place. 

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Kaunisto’s new paintings and drawings are focusing on one character, and one character only. They depict something vulnerable, weak and wounded. There is a lot of energy, but instead of it being released, the works become more like a trap, a black hole absorbing and charging. This voidlike quality in combination with an absence of light and saturation makes things nightmarish. It is, as if Kaunisto has a primitive and childlike urge to peel off the skin and tissue, to get a glimpse of our insides and find our very being. 

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And what really is in there to be found in these heaps of guts and exposed flesh? He leaves us with a disturbing silence. My first thought is, that Kaunisto has tapped into our nonverbal culture and that he illuminates a heritage of muteness that crawls on from generation to generation. The war ended, our heroes came home and work has to be done. There was never a sickness, so there was never a cure. There is nothing to talk about here.

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I am not saying this is what you should be looking for and what it is all about, but Kaunisto is definitely giving shape to something that has an urgency to it. Be it a longer narrative with a lingering trauma in our society or Kaunisto’s personal issues, he still makes it clear that no one is to be left alone. He proves the true need and value of togetherness, love and affection.

Markus Åström

Curator

2021

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