ILKKA SARIOLA: Spes pacis – Hope for Peace

God is gone. My drawings are a kind of recurring depiction of the events of Good Friday and Holy Saturday — moments when God has died and completely abandoned humanity. Based on real events, my works are like accusations against God: “Where were you when you let even this happen?” A friend of mine once called me a “Passionist”! Almost every Easter, I listen to either J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion or the St. John Passion, and at Christmas, I listen to Junkie’s Christmas rapped by William S. Burroughs. Søren Kierkegaard writes in The Gospel of Suffering: “Your cross follows you everywhere.”

What is my own motive for depicting these moments and structures of war and suffering? I don’t know for sure myself, but at the very least, I try with my works to make us look at things and events we’d rather not see. For example, the suffering that marginalized drug addicts inflict on themselves and each other — suffering that would be easier to forget than to confront. In my personal life, the reality of drug addicts has come close to home since I moved to Kurvi, in Helsinki’s Sörnäinen district, about five years ago. Their difficult life situations and violent reality are present every day. I thought long and hard about how I could portray them beautifully, so that they would not be forgotten—especially the children growing up in difficult circumstances. It was at that point, at the latest, that I decided to create these works — when the authorities launched a so-called “cleanup campaign” in my neighborhood. It was disgusting. They should clean up trash, not people! Every drug addict is someone’s child. I demand humane treatment for everyone and a change in the government’s social policy. Art that shies away from reality leaves the mistreated alone, without empathy or shared suffering. Instead of escapist art, I strive to ask again and again: “What kind of world is this?” In my art, I aim to depict the world exactly as brutal as it is. Instead of forgetting, I create images to be remembered. That is why I draw drug addicts, murdered children, and the horrors of war.

My works seek to speak honestly about the brutal nature of human life — in other words, about reality — and take the viewer to the very depths. Only by facing the reality it is possible to reach compassion that darkness cannot obscure. Compassio = compassion = sharing in suffering. My works are suited for those who are not afraid to confront the darker sides of life. This exhibition is not recommended for highly sensitive individuals who already have enough to endure in their own shadows. Suffering brings to light the unjust nature of the world. For the sake of hope, however, suffering and evil must still be looked straight in the eye. I am because we are.

A requiem is a Catholic liturgical service in which prayers are offered for the deceased. Its original name is the Latin Missa pro Defunctis, meaning Mass for the Dead. The first word of the text is requiem, which means “rest.” I pray for eternal rest for the victims depicted in my works.

Helsinki, July 29, 2026,

Ilkka Sariola

Ilkka Sariola (b. 1969, www.ilkkasariola.com) is a Helsinki-based visual artist, theologian, and priest. Spes pacis – Hope for Peace is Sariola’s second exhibition in Turku. His previous exhibition, Kesken, was held at Galleria Titanik in 1998. The centerpiece of the exhibition at Kriittinen Galleria are the charcoal drawings from the Requiem series (2023–2026), measuring 230 x 150 cm. In these works, Sariola addresses the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as tragedies that have occurred in Finland. Alongside the large-scale black-and-white works, the exhibition features small paintings on paper from the series And We Hide in Our Wounds (2023), which depicts victims of the war in Ukraine, as well as four drawings on the theme of dictators from the earlier Bipolar Drawings series (2018).

Content warning: the works may be disturbing to some viewers.