Petri Ala-Maunus – La-La Land

Jyväskylä Art Museum 21.1.–8.5.2021

Petri Ala-Maunus (b.1970) is well-known for his landscape paintings, which, at a first glance, look like romantic pastoral scenes from the 19th century. In his paintings, the majestic scenes have become larger and more impressive than reality. The works, executed with great attention to detail, have a distinctive colour palette, sometimes limited to three or four tones, sometimes even to just black and white. 

These paintings depict nature as something untouched and paradise-like, showing no people or human handprints. However, in some of the works, Ala-Maunus breaks the illusion by adding drips or garish colour that stand out from the rest of the painting, or leaves parts of the surface unpainted to highlight natural forces and dramatic terrain. The übernatur (supernature) captured in the artist’s works refers to an imaginary landscape before or after humankind, either at the dawn of times or the final destruction.

The landscapes of Petri Ala-Maunus have been inspired by the 19th century German and North American landscape painting along with sundry sources of popular culture from typical metal album cover art to New Age themed Utopia illustrations. Ala-Maunus interest in popular music, steaming from experiences in his youth, can be seen in the content of his video work as well as in his paintings.

In addition to his most recent work, the solo exhibition showcases artwork from public and private collections retrospectively from the past ten years. The exhibition is organized in cooperation with Salo Art Museum.

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Petri Ala-Maunus is one of the most acclaimed Finnish painters. His works are in various art collections in Finland and abroad. He is also the first artist alive to have his work on display in the Classics Hall of Finnish National Gallery, in place of Eero Järnefelt’s Under the Yoke (Burning the Brushwood)(1893), which toured Finnish art museums as part of Finland’s centenary celebrations in 2017. In his painting Fells after the Fall (2017), Petri Ala-Maunus pictures the landscape of Under the Yoke in a thousand years’ time.

An extensive publication with generous illustrations on Petri Ala-Maunus, edited by Salo Art Museum and Jyväskylä Art Museum, will be available at the exhibition.