The exhibition ‘Empty Calories’ by EAA Young Artist Award 2023 laureate Samuel Lehikoinen is held at the Hobusepea gallery until August 5. The exhibition is about the ironies and dysfunction of our screen-centric existence, highlighting the cycle of instant gratification driven by our obsessive consumption of the ’empty calorie’ content found in social media feeds.
Despite being acutely aware of the detrimental effects on our mental health, creativity, deep thought and genuine human connection, we seem content or powerless to resist the constant distraction available for us on demand. The constant drip feed of mindless content is mirroring our relationship with low-nutrient processed foods in Western diets. While providing easy and accessible sustenance to stay alive, these empty consumption habits lower our quality of life by making us sicker and passive in the long term.
The exhibition also reflects on my personal paradoxical relationship with loneliness, and persistent struggle in connecting with the outside world. In having tendencies to self-isolate and finding comfort in solitude, I also often find myself suffering from the effects of self-imposed isolation. With my current art practice, I am interested in the escapism of video games, and experimenting with an otherwise highly entertainment based medium, in creating apathetic interactive works related to mental health. Featured here are new experimental video games, installation and 2D works. “Empty Calories” offers an ironic exploration of the malaise of the ‘social media age’, inspired by pixel art aesthetics typically associated with the light hearted fun of retro gaming.
Samuel Lehikoinen (1990) is a visual artist born in Jyväskylä Finland, currently based in Helsinki. He graduated from Kankaanpää School of Fine Arts with a BA degree in 2016, and obtained an MA degree in 2023 from the contemporary art program at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Lehikoinen has mostly worked and exhibited as a painter, he has held 6 solo shows and taken part in multiple group shows since 2016, with works in the collections of Jyväskylä Art Museum. His painting works are based on the repetition of his meditative painting process. The often large scale, meticulously detailed canvases are usually featuring recognizable patterns and textures from nature, removed from their context and transformed into something otherworldly, strange yet familiar. In recent years Lehikoinen has delved into video game development as the main part of his art practice. His graduation work from the Estonian Academy of Arts “Unemployment Simulator 2018”, is a self biographical video game, dealing with the topics of male loneliness and the Finnish welfare system. The work was awarded the EKA Young Artist Award of 2023.
Supported by: Alfred Kordelin Foundation
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.
Photos by Anna Mari Liivrand
