Antti-Ville Reinikainen works in the fields of sculpture and installation art. The viewer recognises everyday and familiar structures but nothing is quite like it seems. Structures appear to be made of heavy and worn bricks but in reality they are lightweight imitations. The works play brilliant tricks on the viewer.

Reinikainen spent his childhood summers in an old vicarage in Velkua (archipelago village in Southwest Finland). In his works he returns to a child’s way of understanding and making connections of things that are beyond comprehension. In a child’s mind, the old vicarage building with tile stoves and church’s mystical imagery get tangled up with amusement park or gas station slot machines. Patriotic decorations and Christian suffering for a noble cause become part of the same continuum. What do we actually worship? Simultaneously the works draw from a deep sense of being an outsider and the inability to understand that adult world or to connect with it. The same feeling of being an outsider stretches into adulthood.

There are no human characters in Antti-Ville Reinikainen’s works but the man-made structures represent humans. The human need to aim towards fulfilment and meaning is evident in religious, patriotic and mundane imagery. With both compassion and a sense of humour, the artist explores the difficulty of finding a connection and how there is always something standing in the way of ascension.

“Ascendant” is Reinikainen’s 15th private exhibition. The works are from 2017. Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Materialshop have supported the exhibition.

Antti-Ville Reinikainen (born in 1980) lives and works in Helsinki. He mainly works with spatial multimedia installations. He obtained a Master of Arts in Fine Arts from the University of Arts and Design Helsinki (currently Aalto University) and a Bachelor of Arts from the Institute of Fine Arts of the Lahti Polytechnic. Reinikainen has held many gallery exhibitions and his works have been in Turku and Hyvinkää Art Museums, Mänttä Art Festival and The Art Center Purnu. He has participated in exhibitions in Iceland and Berlin. Reinikainen is an active member of Galleria Huuto (chairperson since 2016).