With painting as his main medium, Joonas Kota (b. 1976) is distinguished for his meticulous work and attention to detail. Kota’s works, all borderline between abstract and figurative, often create parallel realities and drift between the fragility of the momentary and timelessness. Kota’s oeuvre revolves around three elements: the symbolic reality, the reality in itself, and the transcendental. In his earlier works, Kota proposed how an abstracted forest turns into a virtual scape, how a diamond reflects fractions of the world around us, and how an Emoji icon has gained symbolic meaning even outside its original context. With these elements, Kota pays tribute to the meaning of motifs in painting, by carefully elaborating on each for each series.
Kota graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2003 and is represented in both private and public collections, including Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki Art Museum – HAM and E.W. Ponkala Foundation’s collection. The artist lives and works in Helsinki.
