Our senses are wrong much more often than they are right. This has been proven in laboratory tests. Have you heard of all the theories, according to which nothing is as it seems? The observation is a complex thing. When we look at a white wall long enough, different patterns will start to appear on it. We look for and find shapes, even when they are not there. This is a challenge we face when we think about what we are supposed to see and what we are actually looking at.

My work is guided by looking and discovering. The surfaces of my paintings change when you look at them. The gaze drifts through the mycelium of the brush strokes, constantly perceiving and fading new areas and forms. These shapes come together to make repeated patterns, which permeate the painted surface throughout., I create spatial surfaces to my paintings, which are formed layer by layer so that one work may have up to ten painted passes. As a painter, I am interested in different chromatic systems, the materiality of paint and the formation of patterns through several repeated thin layers. The painted surfaces merge into a network of brush strokes, allowing the viewer’s gaze to wonder aimlessly.

Niklas Ingelius (born 1992), who holds a Master of Fine Arts degree, is an artist living in Helsinki. He primarily works with built canvases and painting. In his work he focuses on the long-term painting process, in which translucent painted surfaces repeating each other create optically and organically moving areas as the work progresses.