Anssi Kaarlo Matias Hanhela

Basic information

b. 1962, Alajärvi
Visual Artist
Residence: Oulu

Contact information

Phone number: +358 443450135

Artist’s Statement

Two Adult children and common-law wife. living in Northern Finland, Oulu
Show biography

Current information

Gallery Katariina, Helsinki 27.3.–21.4.2024

Artist Residency Italia december 2024 and one man  show

Bio

Anssi Hanhela was born in 1962. After many years of studying and working all over Finland, Hanhela returned to his roots in Haukipudas,Northern  Ostrobothnia.


Hanhela started his career in the 1980s painting expressive landscapes.

After having painted constructivist images of gods and minimalist hidden images that dealt with sexuality, he circled back to expressionism when he started painting colorful, expressive art that consists of stories and scenes of life.

The works deal with, among others, problems of loneliness and social oppression. Love is another important theme. A man’s life is a struggle between reality and his own sensitive emotions. It is an existential distress about which of the traces drawn in his memory are real, and which are colored by strong emotions and daydreaming born out of loneliness.

Everything is nevertheless just as real, the world around him takes strongly shape through one’s self.

In most paintings, the viewer can find Hanhela himself, a dark-haired man with a mustache, sometimes even wearing a stern expression on his face. Humor is a part of the internal world portrayed by the works. Erotic themes and the striped shirt era are retreating. The latter of which especially reflects changes in the artist’s personal life. Ghosts, spirits and breaths are new features in his work. They mirror his own thoughts and those around him, they also portray meetings and fantasies in another dimension.

In Hanhela’s works ghosts represent goodness and give a person strength. Ghosts appear sometimes from his own head and sometimes as if from another dimension. Ghosts are thoughts whose goodness or wickedness depends on the day and the circumstances. Societal uncertainty gives birth to evil spirits. The world today is possessed by egotism, conceit and excessive individualism. That’s why we need ghosts.

Ghosts are copies of humans, but they are hidden in Hanhela’s works. Hanhela says he saw his own ghost once. The thought of supernatural beings comes from the artist’s interest in Finnish mythology, and it creates a rich imaginary internal world in his life.

Translation Maria Skyttä

 

Over the years, Anssi has had numerous private group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. In addition to Finland, his works have been exhibited in Sweden, Norway, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Latvia, Poland and Switzerland. In addition to painting and exhibitions, Anssi has worked as a teacher for various lengths among others at Liminka Art school, Piippola School of Arts and Crafts, Vocational College of Western Lapland, Central School of Yli-Ii as well as at various weekend courses organised by different communties, and other fine art events.