Group exhibition
30.01-18.02.2024

Jouko Ollikainen is a 64 year old illustrator, graphic designer and artist. First and foremost he is a quasi-lunatic ideator and art creator. From a young age he has been passionate about seeing the unforeseen and try out different techniques and materials in his work.

The Variations-exhibition originates from Ollikainen’s spontaneous journey through art history, where he wanted to get to know different artists through their self portraits and see himself as i.e. Rembrandt, Frida Kahlo and Gallen-Kallela. All of the 100 portraits he created brought up a special characteristic about himself. During his journey Ollikainen fell in love with royal portraits with which he wanted to play around. Now Ollikainen has moved onto old, famous paintings where he replaces humans with cats. Already over seventy cat paintings have been created.

To Ollikainen the most important things in creating art is the process itself and the way the viewer sees the works – what kinds of thoughts they provoke and what in them creates a conflict or awakes a moral question. Ollikainen hopes that viewers are encouraged to learn about the original artists and art in general.