18.–30.5.2025
Peter Ahlskog, Jesper Vainionpää, Thomas Lavastre

In Use Amuse Abuse painters Thomas, Peter, and Jesper interrogate the duality of human agency and vulnerability through the lens of contemporary painting. The exhibition’s title — a triad of action and consequence — serves as a conceptual framework for exploring how creation, consumption, and degradation intersect in our relationships with material, culture,
and self. Drawing from traditions of socio-political figuration, and surrealist metaphor, the artists employ paint not merely as a medium but as a site of critique, seduction, and rupture. In recognizing both personal hardships as well as wider social issues, that so often leave you feeling as if stuck in a pit with no way out. We reject that cynicism and loudly exclaim the possibility for change. No matter how comforting the feeling of apathy is, a brighter future is only possible if we believe in it. Being able to look at the combination of mundane existence in contrast to the horrors around the world occurring on a daily basis, we will bring the reality of fact into such proximity that you could reach out and touch it, not as an abstract thought that exists somewhere else in the world but instead as a razor firmly pressed at your neck.

The works invite viewers to reflect on how they, as observers, can be both entertained and manipulated, highlighting the thin line between enjoyment and exploitation.

Vernissage 17.5. 18-20
Tue-Sun 13-18