The Alariesto Gallery shows a vanishing Lapp world

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Alariesto Gallery

The Alariesto Gallery in the centre of Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland is located in the vicinity of the Old Church and the reindeer statue. The gallery was opened to the public in July of 1986. The gallery features a permanent exhibition of the life and works of the artist Andreas Alariesto.

The gallery is operated by the Lapinkuvat Foundation of Riikka and Andreas Alariesto and the Sodankylä Municipality. The Foundation is in charge of Alariesto's art collection and seeks to preserve the indigenous culture of the old Sompio area.

Alariesto art work

Andreas Alariesto was born in 1900 in Sodankylä and his life came to and in 1989. His legacy consists of drawings, paintings, photos, songs and even sculptures. The exotic flavour expressed in his paintings is depicting what he himself experienced and childhood stories delivered by the old.

Andreas Alariesto most of all wanted to contribute to the preservation of Sámi culture. Alariesto said that he - through his art - wanted to descibe a lost world, a world that had passed and vanish.

His art is very expressive in its form and they are decorative, perhaps in an unreal manner. Alariesto wanted to describe the social change and the changes in the traditional way of life and Lapp culture that was being destroyed by the industrialism and capitalism of the modern world.

We can feel a melancholic air in front of his paintings. His simplistic style often underscores the conflict between traditional values connected to nature and the modern values as represented in his painting showing a Lapp herder and a gold prospector. You can feel the herder's heart ache

Read about Alariesto in Christian Science Monitor tribute to Andreas Alariesto. Go to the Alariesto gallery and museum.

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