ROY AURINKO

The artist approaches his canvases from the perspective of a uniquely ‘analog’ connection. His entire art practice is about gesture, senses and bodily ties. No digital device could substitute or implement this. In these paintings, nothing escapes the laws of contact and corporeity. Large surfaces allow him whole-body interactions. Body is his true medium. He pioneers a hybrid technique which combines oil and acrylic with cement, pure colour pigments and gesso, so that the canvases themselves become a fully tactile experience. When it comes to drawing lines, he even tries to avoid brushes; he’d rather use oil sticks and pastels, as if wanting to radiate—or channel—colours directly from his hands.

Aurinko’s theme is an ambiguous combination of warm childhood memories and ugliness at the same time. His paintings present a suspenseful dialogue between beauty and distortion, unity and discordance. Aurinko loves movement and music; to him distortion doesn’t mean absence of rhythm. From a strictly compositional perspective, he plays with the opposites just like a free-jazz musician would: he pushes harmonies to their limit and enjoys the sense of danger which erupts on the border of dissonance.

Abstract painting consciously distances itself from the representation of the visible world, and it becomes a space for imaginary mediations, reflections and doublings. Encompassing distance is the key to contradiction. That’s why there is no better place for contradiction than abstract art. Ugliness can coexist with beauty, heaviness with lightness.