Born 1974 in Helsinki
Lives and works in Helsinki
EDUCATION:
BA(hons) Graphic Design, University of Arts London, UK
EXHIBITIONS:
2021
Constantly Dreaming of Concrete
Forum Box, Helsinki, Finland
2020
Writing Stories with Three Letters,
The Finnish Glass Museum, Riihimäki, Finland
2019
History is Made at Night,
Himmelblau Gallery, Tampere, Finland
2018
Writing My Diary,
Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland
2016
Make Your Mark Gallery,
Helsinki, Finland
2015
China Heights,
Sydney, Australia
2015
HAM Metro gallery,
Helsinki, Finland
2014
ARCOmadrid,
Madrid, Spain
2013
Make Your Mark Gallery,
Helsinki, Finland
2012
Unruly Gallery,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2010
Napa Galleria,
Helsinki, Finland
2009
Napa Galleria,
Helsinki, Finland
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2019
Impossibilty of an island,
Herrick Gallery,
London,UK
2018
Artmosphere 2 – Urban Art Biennale,
Moscow, Russia
Graffiti,
HAM Helsinki Art Museum,
Helsinki, Finland
Art is Where the Heart is,
Galerie Droste,
Paris, France
Three Positions in Modern European Painting,
Golden Hands Gallery,
Hamburg, Germany
2017
Rakkaudesta vapauteen,
Kerava Art Museum Sinkka,
Kerava, Finland
Vallaton,
Vantaa Art Museum Artsi,
Vantaa, Finland
Dreamaholic – Art from Finland,
Miettinen Collection, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art,
Bremen, Germany
2016
15 Years Anniversary Exhibition,
Galleria Orton,
Helsinki, Finland
1984. Evoluzione e rigenerazione del Writing,
Galleria Civica di Modena,
Modena, Italy
Out of Sight,
Proof Gallery,
London, UK
Process & Progress,
Foley Gallery,
New York, USA
2015
Works on Paper,
China Heights Gallery,
Sydney, Australia
Multiples,
Le Fix Gallery,
Copenhagen, Denmark
Impossible Spaces,
Kunstpakhuset,
Ikast, Denmark
RZO, EGS, Aeon & Nug,
Fluorescent Smogg Gallery,
Barcelona, Spain
Inside / Outside,
Quadart,
Dornbirn, Australia
Abstract Vandalism,
Galerie Gabriel Rolt,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Unruly Goup Show,
Dog and Pony,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Mapping the Streets,
Somerset House,
London, UK
2014
Art Stena,
Saint Petersburg, Russia
At Arm´s Length,
Örebro Konsthall,
Örebro, Sweden
WuTang is For Children,
Londonnewcastle Project Space,
London, UK
2013
5 years of GSB,
Gallery Steinsland Berliner,
Stockholm, Sweden
Le Fix Gallery,
Copenhagen, Denmark
Make Your Mark-kollektiivi,
Galleria Orton,
Helsinki, Finland
2012
Leave the beef on the BBQ,
Guerrero Gallery,
San Francisco, USA
Det här är inte konst,
Sundsvall Museum,
Sundsvall, Sweden
Stendahls Syndrome,
Stockholm, Sweden
Street Art,
Myymälä 2 Galleria,
Helsinki, Finland
Street Art – The New Generation,
Porin taidemuseo,
Pori, Finland
Tribute to Moebius,
Montana Gallery,
Barcelona, Spain
2011
Universal 2,
Napa Galleria,
Helsinki, Finland
Hang The Prints,
Gallery Steinsland Berliner,
Stockholm, Sweden
Get the Papers,
Galleries Goldstein,
London, UK
Egs & Petro,
Make Your Mark Gallery,
Helsinki, Finland
2010
WMD – International Graffiti Collective,
Napa Galleria,
Helsinki, Finland
2009
Topsafe,
London, UK
2008
Friend & Co Gallery,
Bristol, UK
2006
The Same Line,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Publications:
2018
EGS, Writing my Diary,
Pirkko Tuukkanen (ed.): Finnish Art Society
2017
The Art of Writing Your Name: Urban Calligraphy and beyond
Christian Hundermark, Patrick Hartl,
Publicat
2016
The Art of Rebellion 4 – Masterpieces of Street Art,
Christian Hundermark,
Publicat
2015
Abstract vandalism
Unruly Publishing
2014
EGS – 3 letters
Spray Daily
2013
The World Atlas of Graffiti and Street Art,
Rafael Schacter,
Yale Press
Graffiti Cookbook,
Tobias Barenthin-Lindblad,
Dokument Press
2011
Crack & Shine International,
Fredric Forsythe,
FFF/Topsafe Books
Graffiti Burners,
Björn Almqvist,
Dokument Press
2010
Action Painting – Bringing Art to the Trains,
Kristian Kutschera,
Stylefile
2009
All City Writers,
Andrea Caputo,
Kitchen 73
2003
Overground 9 Scandinavian Graffiti Writers,
Jakob Kimvall,
Dokument Press
1998
Helsinki Graffiti,
Tuomas Jääskeläinen & Anne Isomursu, Matti Pyykkö
Collections:
Aalto University Executive Education,
Helsinki
Helsinki Art Museum HAM
Jaakko Lindgren Collection
Miettinen Collection
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma / Finnish National Gallery,
Helsinki
Pekka Mattila Collection
Finnish State Art Commission
Vantaa Art Museum Artsi,
Vantaa
Pekka Lehtinen Collection
Timo Miettinen Collection
Kyösti Kakkonen Collection
Public works:
Wall Painting,
Commissioned by the HUS Hospital,
Helsinki, Finland, 2017
Three wall paintings,
Commissioned by the Finnish National Gallery: Vantaa prison,
Vantaa, Finland, 2016
Wall painting,
CAC Malaga Contemporary Art Center,
Malaga, Spain, 2015
Egs (1974, Helsinki) is remarkable not simply because he has painted all over the world; over five continents and more than forty countries from Bucharest to Buenos Aires and Shanghai to Santiago. He has also painted with everyone from all over the world; from Ket to Lodek, Rainman to Risk, Petro to Pike and Honet to Hes.
A self-proclaimed graffiti anthropologist, Egs has been pivotal in the historical documentation and dissemination of the graffiti practice itself: an artist- archivist spurred by an intense desire to explore both the formal and folkloric truths of graffiti, to uncover its deeply social and material foundations.
While Egs’ output is becoming increasingly abstract, his ongoing illicit work has resulted from a long and intense study of the graffiti form, in which he has juxtaposed the different eras that he loves through his collagist style.
He started out in the mid 1980s as part of the first wave of graffiti in Finland; by 1988 he had travelled to Stockholm and Paris to discover and document their burgeoning scenes. Although he lived in one of the most geographically distant parts of Europe, Egs was fascinated by the regional connections graffiti generated and travel became integral to his life. His inquisitive interest in these different aspects of regional graffitti led him to form close links in France, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and England by the early 1990s.
The bonds he formed through this collaborative global work are therefore as much a part of his personal practice as the homages he makes to graffiti folklore, as he puts it, through every ‘wave, star, drip or block’ he paints. Travelling the globe to both paint and investigate, to build relationships and share knowledge with other diverse practitioners, he has developed an almost unmatched insight into the vast graffiti culture worldwide. His work shows an acute understanding of the endlessly manipulable possibilities of the alphabet, as well as the various movements, styles and traditions of graffiti itself.
Egs’s World Map triptych, a pen-and-ink rendering undertaken in his classic “inkblot” style, is deeply influenced by the calligraphic essence of graffiti. Twisting and reshaping the topography until it proclaims his own name (albeit abstracted almost beyond recognition), the maps exemplify Egs’s inimitable chirographic style of graffiti, his ability to twist and reshape the letterform into infinite arrangements and shapes. With silver and black also being his favorite colours to write graffiti with – not only to help his letters stand out, but due to the fact they “cannot be fixed or camouflaged with other colours” – Egs use of the deep black Indian Ink in his fine art work further connects these two modes of practice, forcing the viewer to see the equivalent purity and complexity of his graffiti images. Moreover, through using the tool of a syringe to paint, he intimates both toward the outcast role of graffiti as well as the backstage environments where this art is often created; in the dark alleys, the slums and wastelands littered with these objects. The maps Egs has produced here are not only an abstracted versions of the world map however; they also play with the idea of europeans conquering “new” continents and dividing them with pen and ruler, each ruler creating countries that never existed before, each king creating new conflicts with every stroke of their pen. They reference the power of ink to effect our environments, the ability of paint to radically change the way we understand space.
– Dr. Rafael Schacter
Department of Anthropology , University College London, author of The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti
(Yale University Press) and Order and Ornament (Ashgate)