Mika Vesalahti’s five exhibitions showcase eight years of painting work

Text Susanna Poikela

Photos Timo Sguazzi, Tiina Jürmann

Visual artist Mika Vesalahti presents the key works from his painting series created over the past eight years in a five-exhibition series that began in October 2024 at Galleria Aarni in Espoo. The fifth exhibition opened at the ARS Art Factory—ARS Kunstilinnak—in Tallinn on 19 June, 2025. The works in each exhibition are partly made up of the same, partly new ensembles.

“The idea has been to present painting series created over the past eight years, works selected from larger ensembles. The core of my work is therefore seriality, in which the ensemble of works is more important than the individual work. The most essential are Helvetjumalankone (2017–2020) and Triton (2022–2024). Of these, Triton was created entirely in the Viljandi studio,” says Vesalahti.

In addition to Galleria Aarni, the exhibition series has been exhibited at the NART gallery in Narva in collaboration with sound artist Jaakko Autio, at the Ruki gallery in Viljandi, and at the Tampere Art Centre in Mältinranta.

The ARS exhibition also features an extensive series of drawings by Vesalahti made in Grassina, Italy, in January 2025.

Vesalahti’s work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre of Finland, or TAIKE, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, with whose support the Tallinn exhibition is made possible.

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