Press Release
A human being as a subject of a painting has always interested me. Likewise oil is interesting as the material, as well as the traditional way of painting. At present I am keen on a fairly realistic expression.
Memories turn into paintings, in which important, in addition to the portrayed person, is the feeling.
While painting I sometimes move so far away from the original situation, that I realize to have created a new, invented memory, which the painting is telling about. In the exhibition there are numerous images of persons, who do not actually exist in reality, but undoubtedly a part of the paintings are self portraits or portraits.
The earliest images of this exhibition were painted in the autumn, 2008, the newest some weeks ago. So an intensive and proceeding process can be seen in these over one year period works.
A lot of elements have fallen off from the images, partly intentionally – by fading the extra, the essential and the most important features come up more clearly – on the other hand the process of working has lead to a subconscious reducing without my paying any attention.
I work all the time comprehending the whole, but at first I could not imagine, where I was going to. Afterwards there seems to have been a clear path; maybe a part of me as a painter have after all realized, what this is all about…
Elina Laurinen
