Heavenly Light
The Petri Ala-Maunus & Angels in Icons exhibition has been updated with new paintings. The ensemble, which will be on display at the Valamo Monastery Cultural Center until the end of 2025, presents, among other things, commissioned works by Ala-Maunus. Among the landscape paintings is a large-scale painting commissioned by composer and producer virtuoso Kalervo "Kassu" Halonen for his own Free Waters symphony.
Petri Ala-Maunus has also painted album cover art. The exhibition features the cover artwork Mind Control Experiments, commissioned by the Jyväskylä rock band Diamond Jam.
Petri Ala-Maunus (b.1970 Kuortane) is one of the most significant Finnish contemporary artists of our time. He was awarded the William Thuring Prize in 2010 and was a nominee for the Ars Fennica Prize in 2019. Ala-Maunus won the public vote at the exhibitions at the Mänttä Art Weeks in 2007, the Turku Biennale in 2013 and the Ars Fennica nominee exhibition in 2019. His works are in several public and private art collections in Finland and abroad.
The Valamo Monastery is a new context for Ala-Maunus' paintings, which draw their inspiration from, for example, the German and North American landscape painting tradition of the 19th century. At that time, people wanted to express nature in both meticulously realistic and romantic ways. Depicting light and its phenomena was central, which is also strongly reflected in Petri Ala-Maunus' paintings. However, it is difficult to define the time of day in his works, as light appears timeless.
Ala-Maunus's art has never been seen in such a context before. We are used to seeing his art in galleries and museum exhibitions. In the Heavenly Light exhibition that opened in Valamo, Petri Ala-Maunus' paintings open up new perspectives for the viewer when the works are compared to old and newer icons with angel motifs.
"I don't depict people in my paintings - my landscapes lack humans and their traces. It's a relief to look at the landscape without the burden of humans," says Ala-Maunus. Nature plays a major role; it is large and powerful. He is interested in icon painting, the imagery of icons, and especially the landscapes depicted in them. “In addition to my previous paintings, Valamo also has brand new paintings that I have created for new icon bases. ”
Angels in icons
The most familiar angel motif to Finns is probably the image of a guardian angel dressed in white, found in many homes, guarding two children crossing a dangerous-looking bridge. Although the descriptions of angels in the Bible are sparse, their meaning and mission have inspired artists throughout the ages. Angels play an important role in the history of salvation, they brought the good news to Mary, the Mother of God, announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds and were greeted by the myrrh-bearing women on Easter morning.
Church tradition knows the names of seven archangels, the best known of which are Michael, the leader of the heavenly host, Gabriel, who brought the good news to Mary, and Raphael, who appears in the Book of Tobit. The exhibition features old angel-themed icons from the collections of the Riisa Church Museum and the Valamo Monastery, as well as folk icons from the collection of Katri and Harri Willamo. In addition, angel icons by contemporary Finnish icon painters are on display.
In addition to the Heavenly Light exhibition, the Angel Moments exhibition on display in the Valamo Monastery library opens up the significance of angels in icon art in more depth. In it, different angelic orders and hierarchies come to life through icons, artwork, texts, and literature. The exhibition can be viewed during library opening hours until the end of 2025.
