Ola Kolehmainen constantly questions and challenges our modes and categories of seeing. Inevitably, he asks how and in fact "what" we are seeing. Though contemporary architecture serves as his source material, it is not the ultimate end of his study. Kolehmainen contests architecture by abstracting the elements that make it whole, drawing our attention to their as yet unperceived materialities, surfaces, patterns, and convolutions. Each work functions as another cipher in an alphabet that is at times disconcertingly unfamiliar. When combined, however, their language manages to convey Kolehmainen's own system of seeing and understanding. 

Ola Kolehmainen was born in 1964 in Helsinki. He lives and works in Berlin. Kolehmainen’s recent exhibitions include the solo shows Sinan Project, Borusan Contemporary (Istanbul, 2017); Die Alvar Aalto Bibliotek in Vyborg, Salon Dahlmann (Berlin, 2015); Geometric Light, Haus am Waldsee (Berlin, 2014); Reason and Intuition, Museum Pitzhanger Manor House and Gallery (London, 2014); Enlightenment, Alvar Aalto Museum (Jyväskylä, 2012), and his participation in the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010), as well as the group shows Spuren der Moderne, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2014), and the first Kyiv International Biennale of contemporary Art, Arsenale (Kiev, 2012).