• Sponsored by the Embassy of Finland, Ankara, Finnish Fund for Art Exchange, University of Lapland and Finnish Cultural Foundation, the exhibition ‘Waiting Rooms’, of the Finnish artist Juhanni Tuominen is on view in Milli Reasürans Art Gallery between May 12 – June 5, 2010.

• A catalogue of the exhibition, prepared in three languages, Turkish, English and Finnish is available at Milli Reasürans Art Gallery.

Waiting has its own spiritual direction aimed at something hidden outside the range of vision, at a turning point yet to appear. You cannot go and see it, you can not hasten its appeararance, because it is accompanied by Destiny. Waiting is fixed on the course of time, a new day may bring about a change, like a new year, a new decade or a new century.

You can also come across the boundary between life and death there. Not only do the living meditate in their minds the hillside cemeteries wait for the death and hope for getting across this boundary.

Time seems long also for the dead. Their wooden cenotaphs stand side by side under the green cloth of the pavillions. The dead have taken their place with dignity in their own waiting rooms, their vestibules to Paradise.

Juhani Tuominen is an artist who lives in Rovaniemi, Lapland, the north of Finland. His relationship with Istanbul dates back to a quarter of a century. For Juhani Tuominen Istanbul means a return to the subject as a condition of painting. In his visits to Istanbul, Tuominen became fascinated with the tombs and mausoleums from the Ottoman Period.

Surface and space are what emerge as a prominent element in the paintings of Juhani Tuominen. His working references to the structure of space frequently originate in a division of the picture like a rhythmical sequence which bears features of notation. They manifest space as a dimension which takes its form through movement.

The exhibition of the works of Juhanni Tuominen is on view at Milli Reasürans Art Gallery between May 12 – June 5, 2010.