OLA KOLEHMAINEN

I explore aspects of mortality that are neither macabre nor morbid but sublime and serene.  I develope an idea using imaginary realized through photography of either exterior or iterior spaces I find in my travels.  I then combine related elements in their most minimal and pure form.  A golden wall, black plexiglass, blue light:  these reflect the viewer both literally and spiritually.  The installations are journeys in themselves – landscapes, waterscapes, cityscapes – that suggest the terrain after life.

Light is the expression of the sublime both as medium and subject.  In some works there are no photographic images.  The image instead becomes the reflection of the viewer on the mirror – like black surface of the acrylic – a living reflection in the void.  Or it migh be the fragmented reflection on a gold leaf wall.

All installations are site specific.  The physical space plays such an itegral role in the experience of the works themselves.  Dimensions, light, textures, surfaces and their reflections: all these elements complement the images represented.

-Ola Kolehmainen