artist
Petri Hytönen
- Born
- Sweden
Petri Hytönen captures dreams and fantasies in large playful watercolours. The stories he tells derive often from a child’s world. His inspiration is to be found in old photographs, films and strip cartoons. In Hytönen’s pictorial idiom humour mingles with gravity, joy with sorrow. A profusion of toys, lego sections and fairy tale figures comprise most of the items appearing in his images. Colours are rich and lively, as in a child’s world. Fantasy landscapes and dream cities emerge and counter any sense of loss and passing time. There is something both magical and melancholic in Petri Hytönen’s creations. Underlying the works is a process of computer sketching which is then translated to traditional watercolour. Hytönen also makes use of a special spraying technique which enables him to obtain these soft and sensitive results on paper.