Paikka jossa ajatellaan (A place where things are thought)

B-galleria, Turku, January 2020

 

Countless lives inhabit us. I don't know, when I think or feel, who it is that thinks or feels. I am merely the place, where things are thought or felt.

– Fernando Pessoa

​

The place, where things are thought is a series of paintings started in 2018. The paintings are based on ideas about the relationship between matter and mind, the essence or character of nature and the universe, and above all, the spatiality of painting. In my recent artistic work, the core question has been: what is the space of painting?

​

In this set of paintings, the primary task of the work is to be, according to the poet Fernando Pessoa, a “place where things are thought”, a space and an instrument of thought. I ask how one can be in a painting like in space: can a painting be like a room where you can calm down, reminisce, or consider a solution for the problem at hand? In what ways is it possible to experience an object as a place? Can one be in contact with the intangible through material realizations, in which case the painting does not only relay visual perception?

​

My questioning is closely related to the interpretation of the works. In my thinking, I emphasize the mental properties of space, the fact that the space of painting can be connected not only to visual perception but also to other senses and, for example, active recollection. I treat painting as a place, something that is connected to a precise location and that is always rebuilt through interpretation.

​

A work of art, such as a painting, is often thought of primarily as a material and aesthetic object, in addition to which it can be more. A painting can have many spatial features: it is a window in one direction, a mirror in another, and a space with more intangibility that is filled with thoughts and feelings. The abstract views in the works refer to that intangible state.