Retrospective Début Solo Exhibition

OSLO, Norway - Jan. 4, 2019 - PRLog -- Better known for his music and perhaps for his academic research, Holopainen has always been a keen practitioner of visual arts. In his first solo exhibition he will show paintings, ink drawings, digital art, prints including linoleum and woodcut, dry-point and etchings, as well as a sound installation. Some of the works date back to 1995, but most of it has been made during the last year.

At the opening on January 12, there will be a performance of a short piece of music theatre, Blaker Skanse for solo melodica and various other instruments. As the exhibition closes January 20, Holopainen will present his new novel Skrapan ("The Skyscraper"). The novel is remarkable not only for its anti-psychological realism, but also for its mixture of Swedish and Norwegian. Its cover is in fact a linoleum cut which will be shown at the exhibition.

And as if that were not enough, there is a newly released conceptual album: Oberdada's metal-oriented Limits of Entertainment. These seven pieces of uneasy listening were meticulously put together over a long period, despite their uncompromisingly clumsy, haphazard appearance. The album is available as a digital release at https://oberdada.bandcamp.com/. Fragments from one of its tracks can be heard in the sound installation at the exhibition.

The exhibition will be shown at Galleri Dalype in Oslo from Januari 12 to January 20, 2019. For details, see http://www.dalype.no/.

It may also be worth pointing out that all the above mentioned projects—the exhibition, the published novel, and the album—have been realised without any external funding, so there are no strings attached nor any conflicts of interest. In contrast to much of today's contemporary art, the work in this exhibition is not trying to deliver a message. Rather it is an attempt to present complex, puzzling images and situations.