Ville Andersson’s amazing drawings have required thousands and thousands of millimeter-precise lines

Modern art

Ville Andersson: Undertones 19.5. until at Helsinki Contemporary (Bulevardi 10). Wed–Fri 12–18, Sat–Sun 12–16.

Graceful the fingers vibrate on the surface of the paper like in the interference images of electronic screens. Although drawn in shades of gray, the wretched hand has the same glimmer of glitter as an object speeding past in bright light.

Ville Andersson’s UndertonesThe works of the series are based on the “failed” drawing of a photocopier. Andersson has drawn thousands and thousands of thin lines with pencils and ink pens, resulting in amazingly vivid pictures.

The images focus on human body parts with extreme precision. The work named with serial number 28 shows a fragment of a face. In the center is an eye that comes to life in the electric wave produced by countless lines. Densely drawn lines create the impression that the pupil directed at the viewer is always flickering towards the bottom edge of the image.

The Undertones series is merciless to its creator. Each image has taken months to complete. The failure rate is 80, because the works do not allow the artist to make any mistakes.

The works entice you to look up close and follow the endless undulating and rising waves of lines. The thinning and thickening rhythm creates a gray scale that darkens and brightens as the image progresses.

Animated the brightness can be surprisingly strong.

Undertones reminds of Andersson’s exhibition three years ago at Helsinki Contemporary. An abstract was seen there Shimmer (2020). Likewise, with a work consisting of compositions of lines, you had to look away. Standing next to it, it felt like staring into a fluorescent light – such a dazzling effect was created by the work.

If Undertones is technically stunning, it also has interesting art-philosophical references.

Andersson mentions as one point of reference Albrecht Dürerin (1471–1528). Dürer was known above all for the graphics produced using the woodcut method, which was created slowly by engraving, but made it possible to reproduce the images.

In addition to the theme of copying and repeating, the Undertones series brings to mind the grace of art deco, the special close-ups of early avant-garde cinema, and the experimental films of the 1960s. All of these were united by an interest in progress and technology that experientially tuned to the pulse of a changing world.

In the case of Andersson’s exhibition, however, I notice that my heart rate drops. There is a meditativeness in the essence of the slowly created drawings, which feels almost otherworldly in this time.