Artist Spotlight - Janne Hokkanen
Biography
Janne Hokkanen is Finnish visual artist with a multidisciplinary approach to visual art. He integrates diverse media into his art, such as painting, sculpture, public art, and immersive installations, and blends artistic practice with fields like science and natural history to create rich, complex works with depth. Foremost, Janne consider himself a visual storyteller.
Deep Blue Schisms, 2023. Acryl and oil canvas, 75 x 90 cm.
Even though Janne is a very hopeful and joyful person, he add layers of dystopic themes in his works as a warning sign of the course were on.
Concience Dissonance, 2024. Acryl on canvas, 160 x 90 cm.
Early on, like many other surrealists, he was interested in the unconscious mind and dream imagery. His paintings often reside in otherworldly settings that he fills with symbolism from contemporary subjects and different phenomena happening around the world.
Dance with nocturne melody, 2025. Acryl on plywood, 42 x 42 cm.
Janne’s work is characterized by curiosity and research towards nature, desire to experiment, and the randomness of using recycled materials.
The Final Frontier (part 1/3) , 2019. Acryl, mixed media and spray paint on canvas, 73 x 150 cm.
He has received a lot of positive feedback about recent large-scale art projects. Janne’s most significant solo exhibition took place at Galleria Himmelblau in Tampere, Finland, in Autumn 2025. The Biodiful Exolution exhibition was depicting the future of nature with utopistic and dystopic perspectives.
Sinopterus, 2022. Acryl on canvas, 27 x 27 cm.
The exhibition consisted of acrylic and mixed media paintings and a kinetic installation with a soundscape, and the exhibition as a whole drew its subject matter from the present day. It used narrative tools like speculative fiction, exploring the emotional charge we experience when an ecological catastrophe threatens us. The much-talked-about AI technology is also included.
Gravity of empathy, 2025. Acryl and spray paint on canvas, 160 x 80 cm.
Hokkanen's works are like empathy-arousing social mechanisms, addressing, among other things, the efforts to revive extinct animals and the urgent need for the restoration of ecosystems. At the same time, they reflect concern for the state of extremely endangered species. The works depict the most famous animals that have been the subject of revival efforts, such as the Mauritian dodo and the woolly mammoth, and revive them as machines. They also include animals for which conservation efforts have yielded results, such as several whale species.
See you in Dreamland of Dodo, 2025. Acryl on epoxy and plywood, 36 x 36 cm.
The series of works speculates how future humans would create robot animals with the aim to repair the broken ecosystems around the world. Some depict the environments where the animals originally lived before human intervention. The animal machines have already been ravaged by time, and some of them have fallen into disrepair. Some have still managed to restore nature. Some of the animal machines have drifted into space, creating a backdrop for the eternal loss that threatens us, too, if we do not take care of our planet.
Terraformat white clouds I, 2025. Acryl and spray on canvas, 50 x 160 cm.
This is in itself a question. Will life imitate art for a change? Will we create machines in the future that will be restoring nature and ecosystems? Will our effort be enough after all the destruction we have made? Will some animals still have chance to endure and thrive again on this planet?
The Undiscovered Sea, 2025. Acryl and spray paint on canvas, 65 x 165 cm.
At the beginning of 2023, Janne and four other visual artists from the Tampere Artists’ Association completed the “Percent for Art” project for Sampo school and daycare facilities in Tampere, Finland. The artists created a collection of 50 works with the overarching theme of diversity in nature. Janne also acted as the curator and coordinator in the project together with visual artist Sanna Kauppinen. The body of work included paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, mixed media, and his word art made on stainless steel implemented in the yards and onto the floor surface of building.
The last distress call, 2025. Acryl and spray paint on canvas, 160 x 175 cm.
Janne implemented a total of 36 of the artworks himself, with the work called The Source, made in collaboration with Tampere University 3D-lab, being the most instructive work in his career. At 2.2 x 11 x 1.5 metres, it is known to be the largest 3D printed work of art in Finland.
The Source, 2022. 3D granulate print, acrylic paint, plywood, stainless steel and iron, 220 x 1100 x 150 cm.
Artist Statement
In my art, I embark on a journey to explore the boundaries of human experience, and to examine the fundamental mental states of humanity in the present time. I reflect on how we consume news and contemplate the existence of every living being, while our planet and its nature struggle under the pressure we place on ecosystems; in soil, water, and air.
Depth of Inner Abyss, 2024. Acryl on canvas, 65 x 65 cm.
I create worlds where double meanings, symbols, and hidden messages meet and intertwine, offering sparks that ignite the viewer’s own thought process.
Enfolded by the outer glow, 2025. Acryl and spray paint on canvas, 77 x 81 cm.
In the future of human life, the ability to truly belong to humanity—through remembering, imagining and having creativity, connecting with empathy, problem-solving, decision-making, and forming judgments—may become the defining line between being human and becoming passive, AI-centered entities.
Personal Space Amongst the Stars, 2024. Acryl on canvas, 120 x 77 cm.
In the art series Personal Space, human figures have left the red carpet behind. Instead of having their minds wonder in the cloud, they drift into the emptiness of space, as if slowly losing their innermost human nature.
Personal Space series was on display at XV Florence Biennale 2025.
Homepage: www.jannehokkanen.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jmshokkanen/
Vitruvian Cosmos, 2025. Acryl on epoxy and plywood, 42 x 42 cm.
