Samuli Heimonen – Young Artist of the Year 2008

"When I paint, I try to depict for myself something that is hidden. That something is unveiled slowly and in fragments."

Young Artist of the Year Samuli Heimonen (b. 1975 in Saarijärvi, Finland) paints large canvases in acrylic and oil using animals, crowds, boats, machines and other solid objects as his motifs. The main thing in the works is their mood, the ideas and associations they evoke in the viewer.

Paint on Heimonen's canvases is alive and layered. The works are based on a dramatic contrast between dark and light tones, spiced by expressive drip marks and variations in the thickness of the paint layers. Although Heimonen uses colour more liberally in some of his recent work than before, the basic motif in all his canvases is a shape fleshed out in black and white.

Samuli Heimonen earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2002. He held his first solo show in 2000. The Young Artist of the Year exhibition presents Heimonen's paintings from 2000–2008. Several works in the show are on exhibit for the first time. Another version of the exhibition was presented at the Tampere Art Museum in spring 2008.

Young Artist of the Year is an event organised by Tampere Art Museum and sponsored by the City of Tampere and Nokia Corp. Its purpose is to spotlight young talented artists and call attention to new things happening in Finnish visual art. Samuli Heimonen is the 24th consecutive Young Artist of the Year.

Lasipalatsin Mediakeskus Oy ©2001 29.10.2008