Spirit and body
Artist Tuula Anttonen's (b. 1970) new paintings feature pictures of people in different positions - actually in relations with each other. Of course, the viewer can perceive those human-relations only through what Anttonen has composed with pigment on the canvas.
Anttonen therefore composes paintings that show human bodies. And since it's essentially a composition, a painting, it's completely understandable that sometimes these "people" are missing a body part, like a head.
When Anttonen was hanging her work in Galleria Orton, she became worried about how these paintings, in which people are not quite full membered, would be received here. However, something in their painterly quality makes them not oppressive. "They're not amputated, either. I'll cut those limbs off if necessary.
Anttonen's paintings are furthermore physical. The figures in these paintings seem to come close to the borders of the picture surface in their composition."That's why it's very difficult to put these paintings next to each other in an exhibition, when they seem to extend so far. Undeniably these figures push against the borders and against each other so that they almost can't fit."
The feeling of getting exceptionally close probably also arises from the fact that Anttonen instead of copying the external view paints from her inside - and from the inside of the canvas. "I try to build the paintings from the ground up, I often put myself in the position of each person I paint, I paint what position the pelvic floor feels like to be, how the legs are. Actually, I hate that when you paint a person, you paint that horrible pink skin. That's where you start from the wrong direction - you repaint the surface."
The body represented by Anttonen is of course three-dimensional - but she depicts it with two-dimensional painting methods. That is kind of a strange equation.
"I've been interested in the contradiction that emotions are felt in the body and yet, the body sometimes feels strangely detached in relation to the mind. It's also amazing how, for example, a conversation between two people can move completely in very spiritual matters, but still the person has to be all the time physically in that situation, with all his gestures." fyysisesti siinä tilanteessa, kaikkine eleineen.”
So in every human situation there is some kind of two-level domain, physical and conceptual-spiritual, which seem separate, but are nevertheless simultaneous. It's probably one of the biggest issues people wonder about.
Painting, being at the same time two- and three-dimensional, a being here and there, can help in this understanding. At least that's what I think Anttonen thinks when she says she wants to preserve ambivalence in her painting. A strange thing can happen while striving for it, the subject dissolves away. "At one point, I was at the same time painting landscapes, human bodies and floors and yet, I found that I was actually all the time doing the same thing.The subject doesn't matter after all, the paintings basically tell about the same thing."
However, what is interesting is that Anttonen says she is painting a "floor" or a "human body", not a picture of a floor or a person. kuvaa lattiasta tai ihmisestä.
Nonetheless, when we look at Anttonen's painting, we never think we are looking at the floor or a person, but at the painting itself. Then we notice - gratifyingly, surprisingly - that both physical, real being and the thought of something that is not here fit simultaneously the human consciousness. And this basic human transgression or flaw doesn't matter for a moment.
Pessi Rautio, catalogue Gallery Orton 10 years, 2011.
