AUSGANG II. | DARK SUN.

  • JUSSI PYKY,
  • ILKKA SARIOLA

Ausgang II. Ilkka Sariola

One everyday definition of the word exit, ”ausgang” is ”an act of leaving a place”. The word exit also has deeper philosophical connotations. ”Exitus” comes from latin and means ending, end or death. Our final exit is moving from one state to another, from life to death. The Nazis used the term with cruel irony, calling an exit gate ”Ausgang Z”. There is also a desperate search for a way out, exit, from the protracted wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Metaphora ”exit” leads the viewer to confront sad endings in my expressive coal drawings.


Dark Sun. Jussi Pyky

During the summer months, I spent time on the outskirts of the city, drawing. I visited places that seemed insignificant – yet I lingered, not knowing why. In early summer, when the ground was cool and the air warm, I stayed by a reed-filled shore, where nearly bare alder branches traced fractal patterns against the spring sky. In midsummer, with both ground and air warm, I settled in a chaotic birch grove, dense with greenery and flooded with sunlight. In late summer, when the ground was still warm but the air had turned cool, I lingered in the damp dusk beneath a forest of tall spruces, where small, stunted spruces formed a withering forest of their own.
In these places, I spent days – sitting and drawing. Gradually these places began to feel meaningful. Were they reflecting my inner world or was I projecting the contents of my mind onto them? Did they reveal universal phenomena that emerge everywhere – an organized chaos?


Ilkka Sariola and Jussi Pyky are presenting their drawings at Kunstraum m3. Both artists live and work in Helsinki, Finland and are members of the Toolbox artist cooperative. This exhibition is part of an exchange between the Toolbox and Kunstraum m3 project spaces.

Opening hours


Opening: Saturday, 8 November, 6 — 9:30 pm

Exhibition: 9 — 15 November, 3 —7 pm

Artists