Born in Oulu, Finland | Lives and works in Paris, France.

Hannu Väisänen is known for his aesthetic eye, for his sensitivity to color, and for his experimentation with different surface structures. He typically works serially, exploring one theme in depth until it finally leads him to a new source of inspiration. He tends to construct arrangements from everyday objects, which he records by camera. These photos’ noteworthy features are then transposed onto his painted canvas.

Väisänen moves smoothly between different artistic fields as a visual artist, writer, set designer, costume designer, director, illustrator, and as a curator. His latest foray is into the world of textile art, where his range of prints designed for the Finlayson textile company will was launched in May 2016. Väisänen graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and his debut solo exhibition as a graphic ocurred in 1980. Väisänen's works can be found in the collections of a number of Finnish and european art museums, and he has also made public works for the cities of Oulu and Helsinki. Väisänen’s illustrated Kalevala was published in 2000. Vaisanen received the Finlandia Prize for literature in 2007 for “Other Shoes. “He also won the State Prize for Visual arts in 2008 and the State Price for literature in 2015. This year Vaisanen is preparing his next book “Ancestors” for the Otava publishing house, a book of fairy tales for adults. Vaisanen also illustrates the coming book. During his “Artist in residence” period at Youkobo Art Space Hannu Väisanen will be mainly working with the future theatre piece written for a Japanese Bunraku-group. Vaisanen has written essays on Bunraku theatre and studied traditional Japanese theatre forms. Vaisanen has been in Japan for several times and both modern and traditional Japanese culture has a great impact in his work.

Galerie Forsblom has been representing Hannu Väisänen since 2013.

photo: Paula Kukkonen

Date	2016.09.01 - 2016.09.30
Place	Residence-3
Website	http://www.galerieforsblom.com/artists/hannu-visnen