Artist Clint Jukkala exhibit to open Dec. 4 at Finlandia University Gallery

"Useful Fictions," oil on canvas, 2014, by Clint Jukkala. (Photos courtesy Finlandia University)

HANCOCK -- The 24th annual Contemporary Finnish American Artist Series Exhibition -- featuring Clint Jukkala: Lenses, Portals and Escape Plans -- will be on display at the Finlandia University Gallery, located in the Finnish American Heritage Center, Hancock, from Dec. 4, 2014, through Jan. 2, 2015.

An opening reception at the gallery will take place from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 4, with an artist talk beginning at 7:15 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

At once reflective and irreverent, Jukkala’s paintings depict a world in which rationality gives way to the realm of psychology, memory and daily life. Framed and reframed by circular forms evocative of eyes, goggles, or periscopes, our view into Jukkala’s world is constantly shifting. Jukkala asks us to become aware of our own thinking and sense perceptions -- our consciousness. With both humor and profundity, Jukkala offers us a fresh perspective on the sublimity of daily life.

"The Feeling of Knowing," oil and acrylic on canvas, 2011, by Clint Jukkala.

"My paintings offer portals into sensory worlds of color, geometry and remembered experience," notes Jukkala. "Ostensibly abstract, they refer to the real world, suggesting interior spaces, windows and landscape vistas. Through framing and reframing, the paintings unfold, creating pictures within pictures and spatial ambiguities."

Artist Clint Jukkala pictured with some of his paintings in 2014.

Referencing the tradition of geometric abstraction, Jukkala’s paintings stretch its conventions, combining strong saturated color and highly textured surfaces with image making.

"By restoring abstraction to the body, Jukkala generates new forms and surprising connections -- imagination being the subject as well as the primary interest of these works," writes Hearne Pardee in his review of Jukkala's work in The Brooklyn Rail.

"Suspended between the sublime, or sublimated, and the visceral, Jukkala playfully combines devices of high modernism with elemental images, exploring the world generated by his primitive visual logic. Jukkala evokes an abstract sublime that lurks in the pure fields of modernist color. But by making images he also roots himself in an alternative modern tradition, one that goes back beyond Magritte to the Metaphysical Painting of De Chirico and Carrà," continues Pardee.

Jukkala received his Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Washington, and his Master of Fine Art from Yale University School of Art. His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in New York, including a solo exhibit at Bravin Lee Programs, New York, NY, in June 2014.

He is currently a Professor and Chair of Graduate Programs at PAFA -- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts -- and previously taught at Yale University and University of Connecticut.

The Finlandia University Gallery is in the Finnish American Heritage Center, 435 Quincy Street, Hancock. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thursday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday noon to 4 p.m., or by appointment. For more information, call 906-487-7500.