Duncan Butt Juvonen, Juicy pig's restaurant

22 July – 12 September, Holvi, The Lower Gallery

Juicy Pig’s Restaurant presents a brave new world of queasy optimism. The show combines paintings, decorative plates, projections and looped animations that celebrate a fictional restaurant chain.

Juicy Pig the chef greets the viewer, over 2m tall and grinning while delivering a plate piled with hot sausages. A cheerful restaurant employee chops up fish endlessly. A well-dressed hare eats greedily with a knife and fork. A mural depicts cars pulling into Juicy Pig’s ample parking facilities. Alongside this is a large painting of the sausage factory that used to dominate the central office’s meeting room. A small number of Juicy Pig restaurants’ decorative plates are also on display.

But despite the shiny happy people, the show’s subdued palette, dim lighting and dark undertones bring a pervading, sense of unease and falsity. In this show it is unclear what is natural or normal, what is human and what is animal.

Duncan Butt Juvonen is a British artist who has been based in Finland since 2005. He graduated from The Finnish Academy of Fine Arts MA programme in 2009, graduating with a distinction. His artworks have been exhibited in 7 countries and are featured in the collections of two Finnish art museums.

Since his arrival in Finland he has regularly visited and worked in Uurainen from where his wife’s family originate.