Pekka KAINULAINEN, Finland

Born in 1954, lives and works in Karjalohja

Pekka Kainulainen is one of the pioneers of Finnish performance art and clearly belong to the international avant-garde of todays performance art. His work breathes poetry, emotions and humanity. Kainulainen has been active, mainly in Finland since the early 1980s. His work always carries with it a strong emotional and physical presence, and at the same time a light poetic though profound humanity that only can be experienced. In a sense Kainulainen is an artistic shaman, bringing profound poetry and humanity to those that have the chance to experience his work.

"It´s been more than forty years, when I started painting landscapes. From the beginning of my artistic career the meaning of art has been like a prayer to me. I have tried to reach different material forms to discribe my everyday life, where the expression of nature, culture and the inner world of mine makes this mixture where I´m living. Painting a landscape with oil colors is a slow process compared to a run through a forest. Well, of course it´s relative. If your forest is a small park in a city, you can walk through it in a couple of minutes. But if you climb on a high mountain and then look at the landscape from there, the painting process may take many hours or even several days. But wandering through the wilderness could take weeks or months.

It makes no difference to me, if it´s an oil painting that I´m making, or performance, or a video of 60 seconds. To show somehow my wonder, wish, fear, appreciation, admiration...it will easily take all my lifetime.

Thinking about the forms of my art...The point is not the duration of your prayer but the connection. This planet is a bigger point than my belly button. The point is not in art but in life. The point ?"

Please visit Pekka Kainulainens website.

Pekka Kainulainen. Flowerhead. Infr'Action Sète 2006. © Infr'Action and the artist.