When I first saw these paintings on my Tumblr dashboard, I was really attracted to how dark and dramatic they are.  I chose to show images from the artist’s 2009 exhibition at Galleria Heino in Helsinki, There is a Crack in Everything, but there are many more beautiful and interesting pieces on his website.

This statement isn’t directly related to this body of work, but I wanted to find out more about why the artist chooses to work with animal subject matter.  From a statement on the artist’s website: My works are not about the animal world, but I have wanted to use the animal figure as a metaphor for human hopes, aspirations and fears. For me, animals seem to [crystallize] in a great way something fundamentally human. An animal or the nature is a mirror which provides an interesting platform to study the human being.

Visit artist's site: samuliheimonen.com

Source: Galleria Heino

Posted August 26th, 2013