EMPTINESS CEASES TO BE BLUE

OPENING FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 6 – 8 PM

“And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of colour across the sky - so the space where I exist, and want to keep existing… is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime.”- Karl Ove Knausgård, My Struggle.

A man sails alone on a wooden boat on lake Päijänne in Finland. It is the month of the summer solstice. There is a heavy silence contrasted with walls of natural sound. The wind from the Arctic brushes the surface of the water, creates indentations and transmits the smell of pine: intermittently. He observes the angle and the changing tones of the sunlight on the rocks. Waves, formed, are too soft to break.

For the past 5 years, Finnish artist Mikko Rikala (b. 1977) has been exploring temporal phenomena and meditative practices as an extended part of his artistic and conceptual oeuvre. Approaching philosophical questions from a self-proposed system of irrational thought, the artist presents photographs, drawings and composed objects, in metaphorically charged constructions.

For his second solo show at Rotwand, the artist will present a selection of photographs and drawings that will provide an access into this space: where rational actions and thoughts are addressed poetically, and seemingly abstract forms are created following strict scientific systems.

Taking a point of departure in the natural world, its geographical particularities, geological forces and placement in history, the artist shines a light on the changes- the disappearance of physical properties as well as creation of traces- over time. It is with a sense of mystery, and almost child like wonder, that the viewer is guided through the process.

Moving a stone across carbon paper, at intervals imposed by the Fibonacci sequence, the artist created the 6 drawings that comprise Movement of a stone, 2016.  By making explicit the time spent on each drawing (15min, 15min, 30min, 45min, 1h 15min, 2h), we are expressly reminded of a significant constituent in the work’s construction we might otherwise forget, not see, or choose to ignore.

Rikala’s attempt to emphasize the complex, if not impenetrable nature of temporal duration and spatial orientation, and the relations between them, is especially evident in the works Ephemeral like a stone, where the traces of water and the passage of time on a rock has created a concave indentation. In the second of these works, Ephemeral like a stone (pace counter) Rikala has carried a stone in his pocket over the period of a year and created the indentation himself, through the action of counting his steps- and rubbing his finger against the stone.

What is particular to all the works on show is a preoccupation with the shifting of atoms, with objects taking shape and losing form, with removal, with disappearance.  During the course of this exhibition, an eclectic array of subjects are momentarily brought into alliance, reminding the viewer to observe and witness, a metaphorical solar eclipse.

Maya Byskov, Independent researcher, Artistic director