Ville Kansanen (b.1984) is a Finnish multidisciplinary artist based in California.
Ville is an autodidact whose work has been featured in several print and online publications, such as American Photo Magazine, GUP Magazine, SFAQ and Diffusion Magazine. His awards include a Lucie Award and IPA Fine Art Photographer of the Year. Datz Press published his first monograph in 2022; titled "Numen" after a series of work spanning from 2016 to 2021. He has exhibited in solo- and group shows internationally.
Ville employs the traditions and techniques of photography, land– and installation art to create work that exists and functions within photographic space. Most of his work is made in the desert where geologic time is made visible; where habitable landscape reaches its terminal state; and where cultural memories of ancient religions remain tangible. It is within those conditions that Ville constructs his images, often from several exposures and over long spans of time. He returns to the same desolate locations year-after-year for weeks at a time. Living and working out of his work truck, he constructs installations from wood, boards, native rocks, and soil. Often, he will revive and recycle materials from weathered installations, left on-site from previous months and years. Eventually all the materials are collected – leaving no trace of his presence. For Ville, photography presents a space to form a more profound relationship with Nature.
Solo Exhibitions
Datz Museum
Seoul, South Korea
3-person show
Center for Fine Art Photography
Fort Collins, CO
Galerie Hiltawsky
Berlin, Germany
Group Exhibitions
Space-Be Gallery
Seoul, S. Korea
Center for Photographic Art
Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Focus PhotoLA
Los Angeles, CA
Griffin Museum
Winchester, MA
In Focus Galerie
Cologne, Germany
Gelerie 19
Paderborn, Germany
Asmith Gallery
Johnson City, TX
Paul Collins Gallery
Grand Rapids, MI
Mt. Rokko Photo Festival
Kobe, Japan
Galerie Hiltawsky
Berlin, Germany
Center for Fine Art Photography
Fort Collins, CO
Kat Kiernan Gallery
Lexington, VA
The Darkroom
New Orleans, LA
Los Angeles Center for Digital Art
Los Angeles, CA
OXFAM Charity Exhibition
London, UK
Awards
Focus PhotoLA
Top 20
Runner-up
Lucie Award
Discovery of the Year
International Photography Awards
Fine Art Photographer of the Year
Kontinent Awards
Fine Art Photographer of the Year
Publications
L’Oeil de la Photographie
Numen
June
Dodho Magazine
Natural Phenomena: Numen
October
Diffusion Magazine
Volume VIII
Brennpunkt Magazin für Fotografie
Procession of Spectres at Galerie Hiltawsky
March
Art at Berlin
Procession of Spectres at Galerie Hiltawsky
March
The World Weekly
Procession of Spectres
December
Pixel Magazine
Chronicling Depression
November
American Photo Mag
Photographs of the 2015 Lucie Award Winners
October
GUP Magazine
Procession of Spectres
September
SFAQ
Damage Control: A Conversation Between Kim Anno & Ville Kansanen
August
Dodho Magazine
February 2015
L’Oeil de la Photographie
Procession of Spectre
February
Monographs
NUMEN
Datz Press
Edition of 300
Talks & Lectures
Open Show LA #64
September