Ville Löppönen’s solo exhibition Five Space Helmets After Les Demoiselles d’Avignon will be on show at Helsinki Contemporary in April. It takes its starting point in two of Pablo Picasso’s cubist masterpieces, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937). Through these two works Löppönen has dealt with metamorphosis – transformation – both in his own art and in the surrounding world.  

Löppönen’s works were last shown in the gallery in spring 2019. It was then that his expression took its first steps in a more abstract, more expressive direction, and his working process drew inspiration from art history. Picasso’s cubist works have inspired Löppönen to change the way he paints for Five Space Helmets After Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. This new way of working has led to an accentuation of painterliness, to forms that are freer than before, and to more vigorous brushstrokes:
 


“From the viewpoint of painterliness the topical aspect is linked to the transformation going on in my painting. This is a metamorphosis, or a reshaping of form. Cubism’s approach has interested me and given me room to look ahead at things through a multiplicity of viewpoints.”
 


Löppönen’s new works contain human figures and organic forms floating in a vacuum-like space, figures that seem to be in the grip of metamorphosis. The form may be more fragmented than before, but we can still find harmony and beauty in it. Löppönen is also fascinated by the idea of light as a creative force and as a driver of metamorphosis – how it can change something that already exists and our interpretation of it.

Thank you to the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), VISEK Centre for the Promotion of Visual Art and People´s Cultural Fund for supporting the artist’s work.

Ville Löppönen (b. 1980, Savonlinna) graduated with a Master’s in Fine Arts in 2007 and a Master’s in Orthodox Theology in 2018. His works have been shown widely both in Finland and abroad, including in the North America and Australia. His works are in collections including those of Kiasma, Oulu Art Museum, and Turku Art Museum, in The Niemistö Collection, and in numerous private collections in Finland and abroad.