Paintings on the difficulty of touching an Other
Visual artist Tuula Anttonen (b. 1970) has been a painter of one question for years. Wildly twisting and vibrating paintings ask: how can you touch another person?
The paintings are populated by torso-like human figures who seek intimacy but often end up hurting each other. A hug turns into a crush, an attempt at affection into an addiction. No one has a face, and everyone is alone, even together.
The message of the paintings is heart-rending. No matter how close the other person is, in the end he always remains unreachably far away. Everyone is closed in his own skin, his own inner reality. And yet, we crave another's touch, to be loved, and we reach out into the distance we may never be able to reach. Can a genuine connection then even be possible?
Although Anttonen has been painting the same theme with her easily recognizable painting style for several years, the sad poetry of that theme has not lost a drop of its poignancy.
Anttonen's art can be called difficult - not because it is difficult to understand, but because the question it poses is more difficult than one might imagine.
Harri Mäcklin, Helsingin Sanomat, 25.11.2014
