Territorial Behaviour
Blue Shop Gallery
London UK
3.–27.10.2024
Heavy matters handled in lightly
Showing in London for the first time, Blue Shop Gallery presents Roy Aurinko’s solo show ‘Territorial Behaviour’. This brand new body of work from the Finnish painter explores ideas around boundaries and borders, inspired by a frustration with digital discourse, depicted in paint and mark pushed onto the surface. Aurinko explores contemporary themes of communication as a way to explore and further understand the ways we intuitively and defensively guard our thoughts and opinions. The chasm between all of our own human experience, the blank space between islands of paint.
“Debussy once wrote that music is the silence between the notes, and I approach painting in the same way. Even though my way of painting is crowded and frantic, its foundation is built on a quiet, negative surface.
For this new body of work, my starting point for my paintings was a double meaning: firstly, it started as a frustration with the internet discussion culture and, more broadly, with the overall narrowness and one-sidedness of everyday communication: people’s territorial behaviour in comment sections, unintentionally misunderstanding the clickbait headlines, creating an ‘us and them’ mentality.
Secondly, this territoriality resonated with new ways of structuring a painting compositionally. In my work I tend to blur the line between painting and drawing, using pastel and pencil marks to create painterly accents in my visual language. I started drawing boundary lines on the canvas, wondering if I should honor or defy them. I quickly came to the conclusion that I don't want to focus only on negative feelings, but approach boundaries, real or imagined, through curiosity. So, the starting point shifted from petty territorial quarrels to curiosity around crossing borders, developing more spiritual, even esoteric tones in the paintings.
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
In summary ‘Territorial Behaviour’ combines two literary images in the back of my head, Steinbeckian rugged mysticism and Italo Calvino's instruction: heavy matters should be handled lightly.” - Roy Aurinko, 2024
