Sampo Apajalahti's solo exhibition Heart, Heart, Heart comprises oil and acrylic paintings from 2022–2023. The paintings start from small details, often overlooked by the surrounding reality, which Apajalahti offers for our inspection by drawing and photographing them. Thematically, the paintings deal with the relationship between the individual, the home, and the – in places – ugly urban environment, as well as the interface between childhood and adolescence. They act as Apajalahti's personal melting pot, bringing together observation of the environment, art-history references, memories, and imagination. There are not just one, but several, connecting threads running through Apajalahti's works.
Heart, Heart, Heart, refers to the graffiti tag and heart symbol seen in the paintings, as well as to other things that are the focus of the artist's gaze and interest, things that have been elaborated in multiple intricate work phases to form finished works. In his new exhibition, Apajalahti works in his own unforced, unique way, creating figurative art using the sharp-edged taping technique typical of constructivism and geometric abstraction. The world of his paintings is a place where different painterly starting points can exist side by side.
Apajalahti's works often include a “picture-in-picture” still life, which he uses to challenge conventional ways of looking. In so doing, he questions what it is that defines itself as the object of the gaze – is it the painting as such or the (painted) image contained in it? Apajalahti has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki and at Pekka Halonen Academy. His works are in private collections, and those of Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Finnish State, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, and the Heino Art Foundation.
