Dialogues

Gallery 24.1.–1.3.2026 Timo Hannunen & Jaakko Valo

The gallery’s spring exhibition programme presents two contemporary artists from Central Finland at a time. The exhibitions offer an opportunity to examine the artists’ working processes and artistic thinking side by side, opening up new perspectives on both the diversity of contemporary art in Central Finland and the work of well-established artists. During the programme, volunteers from the art museum will host artist talks, where visitors can learn more about the artists’ practices and career paths.

The first exhibition in the series features stone sculptures by Timo Hannunen, who works in Haapamäki, and paintings by Jaakko Valo from Jyväskylä. While their materials and working methods diverge, their practices are united by a shared concern with humanity’s treatment of both one another and other species.

Timo Hannunen (b. 1969, Multia) is one of Finland’s few stone sculptors. Having studied at the Liminka School of Art and the Kankaanpää School of Art, Hannunen identified stone as his primary material already during his student years. Stone introduces a distinct sense of time into his practice: the granite he frequently uses is over a million years old, and working it is a slow, time-consuming process. “Carving stone is like carving frozen time, fragments of space,” the artist has observed. He often draws the subjects of his works from his immediate surroundings, grounded in personal observations and experiences.

On view in the exhibition is Hannunen’s most recent body of work, Orbiters (Fragments of Space), completed in 2024 from glacial erratics found in his own yard. The series was most recently exhibited at the presidential summer residence Kultaranta in the summer of 2025.

Hannunen has realised numerous public artworks. In Jyväskylä, his sculptures include Halla (2002), located in the Kuokkala roundabout. Nationally, his best-known public work is the gravestone of musician Juice Leskinen, completed in 2007.

Jaakko Valo (b. 1954, Kaustinen) is a versatile artist who has expanded his practice from an early focus on painting to include sculpture and object-based works. Valo is a committed pacifist, and many of his works address the absurdity of war.

In his most recent works, Valo has returned to painting, delving into the world of childhood through his personal history. Childhood games and playmates, meaningful animals, and significant places emerge as subjects in paintings based on photographs from the artist’s own albums. “I have always been deeply affected by the evidentiary power of photographs, and I wanted to carry some of that force into these paintings. I played for a long time, often alone. I was born about ten years after the war, and its proximity had a strong influence on my games,” he explains.

In his hometown of Jyväskylä, Jaakko Valo is especially known for his murals, which he has been painting since 1984. Valo is a member of the nationally recognised artist group Dimensio and was awarded the Central Finland Art Prize in 2022.

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish National Agency.