Villa Gyllenberg to exhibit new works by Jarmo Mäkilä in autumn 2024

Hidden and visible lives

 Jarmo Mäkilä's visual language is realistic, even meticulous, but the events he depicts are far from everyday reality. His paintings are metaphorical worlds that include all of his selves, from knee-high boy to the threshold of adulthood, plus alternative presents and futures, real and imagined.

“Things are not what they seem,” says Jarmo Mäkilä. “A picture is not what you see, but what it awakens in you and what is behind it. A person lives, in a way, two lives: external and internal. One is hidden and the other is visible. I am trying to engage with my hidden life.”

Ane Gyllenberg too was interested in the development of the self and the effect of spirituality on a person. This interest is reflected in the art collection of the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation, which includes numerous works depicting inner dialogue and spiritual exploration. Mäkilä feels that his reflections on the development of the self connect him with Ane Gyllenberg, and he has chosen works from the Gyllenberg Collection that he feels are meaningful to him. The artist's works have previously been exhibited in parallel with works at the Gallen-Kallela Museum (2020) and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum (2021–2022).

New works explore the process of ageing

Jarmo Mäkilä (b. 1952) is one of the most significant painters of his generation and has had many selves, also as an artist. He has always followed his own path and made his breakthrough in the 1970s as a social realist, rose to the top of Finnish postmodernism in the 1980s, and surprised in the 1990s as a prominent cartoonist. In recent decades, he has looked at his childhood in post-war Finland and done so in a way where the individual’s subjective experiences expand to become recognisable on a general level.

The exhibition at Villa Gyllenberg consists of Jarmo Mäkilä’s recent works, some of which are being exhibited for the first time. One of its prominent themes is time: on the one hand growing up and on the other, physical aging. Over the years, Mäkilä has painted several portraits of his mother. In the exhibition, these portraits are compared to Helene Schjerfbeck’s self-portraits in the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Collection, in which the artist mercilessly depicted her ageing and frailty. In addition to Mäkilä’s paintings, sculptures and an installation, the exhibition also presents works by such artists as Fanny Churberg, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Ernst Krohn, Väinö Kunnas and Tyko Sallinen.

A press conference will be held at the Villa Gyllenberg Art Museum on 22 October at 11am.

 

Contacts and interview requests:

Lotta Nylund, Chief Curator, lotta.nylund@gyllenbergs.fi

Siiri Oinonen, Head of Customer and Program Services, siiri.oinonen@gyllenbergs.fi (image requests)

Opening hours

Wed, Sat, Sun 12–17

Admission

12/10/0 € with Museum Card

Tour bookings

villa@gyllenbergs.fi