Torso Liberation Movement
Painter Tuula Anttonen (b. 1970), who graduated from the Bourges National Art School in France and the University of Industrial Arts, depicts in her strong acrylic paintings individual torsos as well as human figures, that seem to be fighting for their space on the pictural surface.
The paintings, oscillating between the abstract and the expressive, also get additional significance from their names. When the title of the work is My Own Lap or The Other's Lap, they have a completely new charge and a psychological framework of interpretation.
Anttonen does not paint from observation but builds her figures from her own head, so to speak. However, the figures often remain headless, and Anttonen herself has stated that "I left the heads out so that it would be easier for the viewer to jump into these skins". And it is true that as objects of identification and surfaces of association, anonymous and non-localized characters are equal to everyone. The physicality of the character and also the power of the emotions becomes more obvious when it is not identified at anything specific. Anttonen herself states that "feelings about physicality are often located in the lower abdomen and feelings in general somewhere under the sternum".
The physicality of Anttonen's works is extremely powerful. It stems both from the depicted figures and also from the painting technique itself. The strong brushstrokes and the natural color palette used by Anttonen support each other so that the connection between content and form is, as a manner of speaking, concretely palpable or universally recognisable.
The torso, with its stomach and pectoral fins, in addition to carrying emotions, has always had a special art-historical meaning, which Anttonen also seems to be playing with. Originally, the importance of torsos was emphasized through the discovered statues of ancient Greece and Rome, but already from the 16th century, torsos began to be carved and painted. Anttonen's torsos are like a part of the torso liberation movement, with which that basic form of art history, solidified as a symbol, has been brought back to life.
Otso Kantokorpi: Published 98: Torso liberation movement, blog "Naked Critic", 1.12.2010
