Matti Kallioinen
Mellanting
23.02—23.03.24
Gallery Steinsland Berliner proudly presents Mellanting, a solo exhibition by the Swedish artist Matti Kallioinen. In Mellanting works of various mediums are presented, including painting, drawing, and sculpture, among them a type of paintings which the artist simply refers to as “puzzle paintings.” Here, Kallioinen demonstrates his ability to find new approaches to the process of image-making and its fundamental premises.
“One can think of colours as an extra dimension of differences that unfold in the field of vision. As long as the colour shifts maintain a suitable rhythm, they support orientation and memory. In my new series of ”puzzle paintings”, the entire spectrum of colours has been compressed in a way that complicates the emergence of an image space. The picture surface has literally been cut into pieces that have been separated. The pieces have been spray-painted individually in more or less arbitrarily chosen colour gradients.
When the puzzle is assembled, the image space flickers, as if it is simultaneously opening and closing. It feels like one begins to forget the image while still looking at it.”
Perhaps the most immediately recognizable aspect of Kallioinen’s artistic practice is the expressive colours and shapes that are present regardless of the medium. The works are playful and sometimes primitive in their expression but in fact contain layers of complexity. A line in Kallioinen’s works is deceptively simple; often, it proves to be indefinable upon closer examination. The sculptural wave forms that the artist has been working on for several years in various scales and materials are based on hyperbolic geometry and are also seen in Mellanting, this time as ceiling-hanging sculptures.
Kallioinen’s visual world rests on musical principles; notions of rhythm and wave motion are depicted in both 2- and 3-dimensional works. An exploration of how our cognitive and sensory machinery constructs our understanding of the environment permeates Kallioinen’s artistic practice, where the components of perception itself are explored. The line, and by extension the image, has an inherent potential and is treated as such by Kallioinen. In Mellanting there is also a series of pencil drawings where simple line play is rhythmically repeated into figures of more or less familiar motifs that emerge spontaneously in harmony with the wave motion of the line.
Matti Kallioinen (b. 1974, Uppsala) lives and works in Stockholm. Kallioinen received an MFA from Konstfack in 2000. Since then, he has participated in exhibitions at several galleries and national institutions such as Moderna Museet, Bonniers Konsthall, Grafikens Hus, Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Magasin III, and most recently at Gotlands Museum. Kallioinen’s artistic practice has also been established as permanent features in the public environment through installations visible throughout the country. In 2023, Kallioinen completed four new public works, including the sculpture Strupsång at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. Among his previous public works is the sculpture group Spectral Self Container at Anna Lindh’s Square in Malmö. Mellanting is Matti Kallioinen’s second solo exhibition with Gallery Steinsland Berliner.