perjantai 13. maaliskuuta 2009

Wanton Bliss - Press Release


THE MANY ASPECTS OF COLOUR

Maaria Oikarinen has called this exhibition of her work Hekuma - Wanton Bliss. The breadth of this theme is revealed when examining her paintings. Oikarinen uses a variety of techniques in her work; she drips colour onto the surface of the canvas, attaches acrylic film on top of the colour and achieves reflective effects with glitter, sequins and mother-of-pearl pigment. In Oikarinen’s paintings colour takes on the role of matter that both forms and deconstructs.

The colours she uses are seen as if through ragged and gelatinous garments; garments to which are attached pearls, clots of acrylic paint and which are textured with sand. The transparent medium Oikarinen uses allows the underlying layers of colour to show through. One can also see the tracks of spatula. In this way the colour is transformed into objects on the surface of the painting: acrylic film encountering the oozing, colourful pigment.

Even though for Oikarinen painting is all-consuming, each of her paintings has its own individual form of existence and colour range. Light colours and different intensities of red dominate. From the chosen mix of her various working methods the forms in her work arise and create challenging colour combinations. The forms are a continuation of the gesture of throwing and dripping the colours onto the canvas - as if a kind of power has forced form out of colour. This working method makes Oikarinen’s paintings both abstract and concrete. Colour becomes a will structuring form.

The titles of the paintings call forth associative references to existence. The painting "Thesis on wounds and diamonds" presents multifaceted arguments through the traces left by the pathway of the colour. The run of colour is like an extended contradictory statement, its own divided position. Colours as arguments drip. Forms exist at the surface of colour-objects and objects are atop painting-forms. Even the seams of colour have seams. The paintings of Maaria Oikarinen are a seamless combination of form, strength and colour.

Altti Kuusamo

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