HERE
ARE SOME PORTRAITS I'VE MADE IN 1998–2023
As
the categories are not absolute, you'll find
portraits also in the other painting & drawing
sections – and in printmaking and in photography
too.
Also, some of these portraits are actually
landscapes or still life paintings.
Many of these are also highly allegorical. However,
what unites these works is that they are all painted
from model, from direct observation — no matter how
far departed from the so-called realism the outcomes
might be.
What do
I mean with observational here? My use of color is
not naturalistic and I also tend to distort the
forms of persons or scenes I depict. With
observational I simply mean that I often paint a
real person or a real scene and try to stay
faithful to what I see in it and investigate my
relationship with it. I that sense I think in
these paintings belong to the school of "certain
kind of realism". The phrase comes from
philosopher Maurizio Viano. He used it to
describe Pier Paolo Pasolini's cinema in
his wonderful book A Certain Realism: Making
Use of Pasolini’s Film Theory and Practice
(1993).
During my career I've
grown steadfastly interested in continuing with the
"old forms" of allegorical and portrait painting.
One reaseon was that I noticed that those who were
interested for example in my theatre work, films and
photographic work were often categorically
dismissive of painting as a genre. This irritated me
and actually encouraged me to consciously
acknowledge and show my roots in the tradition that
runs from Giotto
(1267–1337) via Giovanni Bellini (1426–1516), Matthias
Grünewald (1475–1528) via Francis
Goya (1746–1828), Otto
Dix (1891–1969), Max
Beckmann (1884–1950), Keith
Haring (1958–1990), A.R.
Penck (1939–), Martin
Kippenberger (1953–1997),
Adolf
Wölfli (1864–1930), Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), Hilma af
Klint (1962–1944), Maria Lassnig
(1919–2014), Chris
Hipkiss (1964–) and Lena Cronqvist
(1938–).
I've also tried to show that figures like Henri
Matisse (1869–1953) were not just
pre-formalists and ancestors of abstract art, but
simultaneously also exponents of allegorical
painting, painting that deals with the questions of
everyday world instead of turning its back to it in
favour of aesthetic make-believe.
Sizes of these paintings and drawings vary a
lot: the smallest are less than 40 cm tall and the
biggest is over three meters wide. The most common
size of portraits that I make on paper is 100 x 70 cm.
The portraits on canvas are often bigger, my standard
size in those tends to be 200 x 300 cm. |
A portrait from 2023:
A portrait (that's equally an allegory) from 2021:
Portrait drawings and watercolors from 2009–2021:
  
Small oil paintings from 2021:
Portraits (and one drawing) from 2005–2008:
 
 
    
A big triple portrait on canvas made in
Villa Karo, Grand-Popo, Benin, Africa, in 2009:
Watercolor portraits (and one oil) made in Villa Karo,
Grand-Popo, Benin, Africa, from 2004 and 2009:
  
 
A few big portraits on canvas from
2001–2008:
 
Watercolor portraits of my family and
friends from 2000–2002:
 
 
A few big portraits from 1999–2000:
 
Small and mid-size portraits on canvas and
wood from 1999–2001:
 
A couple of watercolor portraits from
1998:
 
Exhibition views:
Aatos with the painting Aatos
Playing, Gallery of the Finnish Painters'
Union, 2021.
Kemi Art Museum, 2010.
Me in a
show with the Portrait of Paula Koivunen in
2003.
|
