12.3.–5.4.2026

“Artist House” is a multidisciplinary, multi-year project that explores how a visual artist might work as an architect or how the idea of an artist house might emerge from a visual artist’s perspective. A built space based on an artist’s needs follows a different logic than one designed by an architect. The functions created by the artist are shaped by observations, forms and esthetic needs. Just like in art, various subconscious needs, dreams or even fears are hidden within the forms of these buildings, striving to be something other than realistic, functional architecture as it is conventionally perceived. The process also examines how influences move back and forth between different art forms. The Artist House is not a plan for a studio residence, but a plan for a building that is also a work of art. It also seeks to reconnect with past times, like the Renaissance, when the artist and the architect were the same person without being limited by professional titles.

Landscape

As an artist, I see buildings as part of the landscape or as places from which the landscape is observed. The interior is also its own landscape and, at their best, buildings are a series of landscapes opening up from one space to another and ultimately outward or the other way around. The Pointillist Artist House can be seen as a landscape shaped by dots, yet one also looks outward from there. The lens transforms the house into either a voyeur’s house or an exhibitionist’s house, depending on the perspective. This parallels the way an artist looks at the world or their models, observing closely or at times revealing something deep within themselves. The different buildings in the exhibition are the houses of different artists or different artists’ alter egos. As in my previous exhibitions, the scale of the architectural models plays a significant role. All models and sculptures are presented in varying scales, which the viewer must decipher. In the world of scale models, the scale is always wrong in relation to the human – a building meant to contain people becomes smaller than the people. This distortion is neither merely practical nor accidental, as it holds its own meaning in this spatial game.

The Artist House exhibition at Galleria Huuto is the first part of this long-term project. It showcases the over 20-year artistic career exploring the theme that links visual art and architecture, investigating how these two might function as a unified art form.

The exhibition at Galleria Huuto features various scale models and architectons. In later stages, the project will explore the Artist House as part of the landscape and space, also outside the white cube world of the art gallery.

Kasper Muttonen (b. 1979) is a Helsinki-based visual artist. He graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2003. He also studied architecture at the Department of Architecture in Otaniemi in the early 2000s. Muttonen has exhibited his works in solo and group exhibitions in Finland and across Europe for over 20 years. In addition to his artistic work, he has been actively engaged in advocating for the Lapinlahti area in Helsinki for over a decade.