Ville Kansanen is a Finnish multidisciplinary artist based in California whose works use digital photography to examine "transcendent aspects of the natural environment." He ventures into the desert - an ever changing expanse of barren land - equipped with camera and props and assembles sculptures that he documents over time. While there is a rich history of artists who work in and with the natural landscape including Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long, as well as photographers who are interested in perception and representation who have documented interventions created to be viewed from specific vantage points like John Pfahl (1939-2020) and the contemporary Los Angeles based artist Chris Engman, Kansanen's interventions collapse time and space.
For Future Primitive, he has created works in situ at Coyote Dry Lake Bed near Barstow, California represented as digital photographs made by compositing layers of images taken over time. This allows the final photograph to not only align with distant mountains, the sun or the moon, but also to be both sharp and out of focus through shallow depth of field. For Landstones #1 (2024), he brings various materials including painted wood, fabric, earth and limestone to the gallery to create a site-specific sculpture similar to what he might construct in the desert. Here, medium size stones are bundled together and suspended within a wooden framework in front of a wall whose top half is painted black and whose bottom half is covered with brown desert mud. The suspended stones are likewise half black and half brown and when viewed from a certain vantage point, the rocks perfectly align to create a horizontal line that cuts across the wall. Having an actual sculpture in the gallery helps viewers understand Kansanen's process which is otherwise presented in the photographs.
Kansanen is drawn to the solitude, light and timelessness of the desert landscape. He is interest in creating sculptures and performances that he documents as they evolve and then presented as single images. In many of the works, the compositions emphasize the horizon line which is often bisected by wooden armatures holding suspended objects. For example, in Landstones #2 (2020), Kansanen inserts a vertical pole in the crackled ground that holds a cluster of rocks in position just at the horizon line, resembling the illusion in the gallery. The rock held in place in Mountain/Rock #1 (2018) rests above the dip in a mountain, perfectly placed so that it hovers just above the valley and surrounded by blue sky.
Kansanen also tracks the way the desert changes from day to night. He records the movement of the sun and the shadows it creates, as well as the differing shapes of the moon. In doing so, he thinks about the relationship between land and sky as well as light and dark. In Annular Eclipse Tracker Triptych (2023), Kansanen photographs from multiple angles a large circle inscribed in the sand that parallels the shape of the eclipse. In the left panel, the moon is a horizontal crescent and the parallel painted mark in the sand is a white semi-circle. In the center image, the white (painted) circle is complete to match the glowing halo where the moon now blocks the sun. In the third piece, the glowing moon is an upside down crescent and the mark in the sand appears at the bottom of the image as a deep brown line indicating his alteration of the landscape.
While Kansanen's images are formal studies that rely on perceptual acuity, they are also concerned with supernaturalism and the spiritual aura elicited by the desert. An image like Sky/Sun 06 (2016) is playful as it appears as if Kansanen is pulling clouds down from the sky, while photographs including Land/Earth #5 (2017) and Land/Earth #8 (2018) are eerily haunting as Kansanen evokes portrays of the supernatural. Having spent a lot of time in the desert, Kansanen has a reverence for nature and is respectful and cognizant of its vastness and unpredictability. His process begin with observation. He then creates interventions that are photographed in varying stages. The final images are about perception and reveal the how these interventions reflect both the magic and power of the desert. They celebrate the light and space in the desert, as well as the passage of time.
For Future Primitive, he has created works in situ at Coyote Dry Lake Bed near Barstow, California represented as digital photographs made by compositing layers of images taken over time. This allows the final photograph to not only align with distant mountains, the sun or the moon, but also to be both sharp and out of focus through shallow depth of field. For Landstones #1 (2024), he brings various materials including painted wood, fabric, earth and limestone to the gallery to create a site-specific sculpture similar to what he might construct in the desert. Here, medium size stones are bundled together and suspended within a wooden framework in front of a wall whose top half is painted black and whose bottom half is covered with brown desert mud. The suspended stones are likewise half black and half brown and when viewed from a certain vantage point, the rocks perfectly align to create a horizontal line that cuts across the wall. Having an actual sculpture in the gallery helps viewers understand Kansanen's process which is otherwise presented in the photographs.
Kansanen is drawn to the solitude, light and timelessness of the desert landscape. He is interest in creating sculptures and performances that he documents as they evolve and then presented as single images. In many of the works, the compositions emphasize the horizon line which is often bisected by wooden armatures holding suspended objects. For example, in Landstones #2 (2020), Kansanen inserts a vertical pole in the crackled ground that holds a cluster of rocks in position just at the horizon line, resembling the illusion in the gallery. The rock held in place in Mountain/Rock #1 (2018) rests above the dip in a mountain, perfectly placed so that it hovers just above the valley and surrounded by blue sky.
Kansanen also tracks the way the desert changes from day to night. He records the movement of the sun and the shadows it creates, as well as the differing shapes of the moon. In doing so, he thinks about the relationship between land and sky as well as light and dark. In Annular Eclipse Tracker Triptych (2023), Kansanen photographs from multiple angles a large circle inscribed in the sand that parallels the shape of the eclipse. In the left panel, the moon is a horizontal crescent and the parallel painted mark in the sand is a white semi-circle. In the center image, the white (painted) circle is complete to match the glowing halo where the moon now blocks the sun. In the third piece, the glowing moon is an upside down crescent and the mark in the sand appears at the bottom of the image as a deep brown line indicating his alteration of the landscape.
While Kansanen's images are formal studies that rely on perceptual acuity, they are also concerned with supernaturalism and the spiritual aura elicited by the desert. An image like Sky/Sun 06 (2016) is playful as it appears as if Kansanen is pulling clouds down from the sky, while photographs including Land/Earth #5 (2017) and Land/Earth #8 (2018) are eerily haunting as Kansanen evokes portrays of the supernatural. Having spent a lot of time in the desert, Kansanen has a reverence for nature and is respectful and cognizant of its vastness and unpredictability. His process begin with observation. He then creates interventions that are photographed in varying stages. The final images are about perception and reveal the how these interventions reflect both the magic and power of the desert. They celebrate the light and space in the desert, as well as the passage of time.
