Ville Lopponen

Popular imagery meet the classical tradition in Ville Löppönen’s skillful painting. Over the years Löppönen’s art has been influenced by graphic novels, Western Church art, and the Eastern tradition of religious icon painting, but also the everyday life and his own family inspires him. His expression has evolved gradually from figurative, even photorealistic, portrait painting towards the abstract, and the organic.

Löppönen’s imagery deals with the healing nature of love and the human struggle with the self and its contradictions. He is concerned with the conflict between religious service and ego-based artistic creation. Löppönen sees his art as being theological contemporary art. The painting process itself is an act of spiritual reflection or prayer, and full of enjoyment.

Löppönen’s most recent works carry on the artist’s journey of exploration out of darkness towards the nature of light. The upcoming Five Space Helmets After Les Demoiselles d’Avignon exhibition concretely situates light in the present time and moment, via questions about the feminine, gender and quantum reality. In addition to interpretations of light, painting is a place where Löppönen deals with the movement, the metamorphosis, caused by the challenges of ...

2018 University of Eastern Finland,Master of Theology, Joensuu, Finland
2007 Master of Arts in Fine Arts, Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland
2006 Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland
2001-2002 Liminka Art School, Liminka, Finland
1997-1999 Savonlinna Senior Secondary School of Art, Savonlinna, Finland

Solo exhibitions
2020 Interventions, Art Center Ahjo, Joensuu, Finland
2019 Interventions, Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki, Finland
2016 Contemplation, Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki, Finland
2015 Painter Between Icon and Landscape, Mikkeli Art Museum, Mikkeli, Finland
2014 Ghosts, Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki, Finland
2013 The Bonnafont Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
2012 Galleria Kalhama & Piippo Contemporary, 24.2-18.3, Helsinki, Finland
2010 Kustom Works Tattoo, Savonlinna, Finland
2008 Gallery Kalhama & Piippo Contemporary, Helsinki, Finland
2007 Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, Kasarminkatu, Helsinki, Finland
2005 Gallery Filebos ´idealer, Hasle, Denmark

Group exhibitions
2022 Like a Shifting Dream, Riihisaari -Savonlinna Museum, Savonlinna, Finland
2021 Portrait Now! Brewer J.C. Jacobsen Portrait Award, The Museum of National History, Fredriksborg Castle, Hillerod, Denmark
2021 M_Itä? Biennale of Contemporary Art, Mikkeli Art Museum, Mikkeli, Finland
2019 In Situ, Gedern, Hirzenhein Ortenberg and Oberhessen, Germany
2018–2019Manifest of Stillnes, Hyvinkää Art Museum, Hyvinkää, Finland
2017 Savonlinnan Uusi Taidemuseo, Savonlinna, Finland
2017 Savonlinna Senior Secondary School of Art -50 years, Vals...