I am dealing with architecture and the idea of a painting as a façade. Exploring the design of a façade as an abstract system that has precedent but can be parallel to painting. I’m seeing if I can create that synergy between them. — Pentti Monkkonen
Here, the familiar face of Macaulay Culkin from the 1990 movie Home Alone becomes the façade of a European timber-framed house. Monkkonen’s work mashes together a number of art historical precedents – Pop art, portraiture, and architectural design, among others – and playfully asks us to consider the mouth as a door, eyes as windows, and hair as a roof. The blank space behind the eyes sets up a more conceptual relationship between the constructed façade of the actor’s face and the façade of a home, both of which might mask a strange reality taking place behind them.