Iisa Maaranen: The light seeps through
“Light always plays a major role in my paintings. It kind of seeps through. It highlights the subject and is a great tool for telling about the experience. Light is able to present moods. It can also work on a symbolical level: in my paintings light often transpires everything else.”
"Usually there is a crack in the background in my paintings, an issue that I want to address. The launching factor is an observation. While walking or cycling, I observe my environment and take pictures of things that catch my attention. I collect observations. I worked in a warehouse for a long time and saw an endless array of details and arrangements. I was interested in groups of objects and the boundaries between the groups, the communities. I have painted lots of them. I am still working on the same communal theme. In my paintings, objects and groups of objects symbolize people. A few years ago I created a series of paintings of house dust and other residues. I got the idea while cleaning. I started to look at dust balls, and the closer I looked, the more meaning I saw in them. They are residues from the past. Things we would like to leave behind.
I’ve always been sensitive to seeing semantics around me. Once you’re sensitized to seeing, you’ll start noticing arrangements and symbols practically everywhere. In the old times, still-life painters charged their works with plenty of symbolism. I’m interested in modern still lives and seeing them around me.
I took the same observation course three times at the Academy of Fine Arts. Just looking, looking and looking at things made me sensitive to notice. I still do it a lot; I look at one thing for a long time, staying by its side, and I start to see its levels. It becomes interesting.
I go to a transcendental state. It’s like powerful meditation. I’m simultaneously looking at something outside myself and turning away but also looking at myself through another object. I’m fascinated by the ability to manage one’s own processes visually.
At first, I studied industrial design, but I longed for a deeper level. I’ve been drawn to painting since a young age. Painting lets me simultaneously process many subjects and levels. However, I didn’t study visual arts before the age of 24; first at the Free Art School for a year and then at the Academy. Before that I only painted in my free time. Painting is my way of studying the themes that interest me, in depth and outright.
I’m not painting all of the time. I sit a lot, and I watch. Thinking what to do next. I’m slow; sometimes I think about one detail for a long time. I rarely feel that my work is done. I’ve come to accept that nothing is ever final. Yet I have to let it go.
My paintings have been called esthetically impressionist. Light always plays a major role in my paintings. It kind of seeps through. It highlights the experience and is a good tool for telling about the experience. Light is able to present moods. It can also work on a symbolic level: in my paintings light often transpires everything. Lately I’ve been inspired by foreign figurative modern art, such as the works by Swedish Mamma Andersson, British Hurvin Anderson and American painters Catherine Murphy, Jeremy Miranda and Hernan Bas. Their works display strong levels of experiential and personal stories combined with skillful compositions. All this I want to add to my own paintings.
Last spring was a difficult time for me. I had to work hard to allow myself to let go: to make more story-driven, illustration- and child-like art. To let the emotional level show. There were a couple of years when I thought it’s not appropriate. I produced paintings that didn’t really present, but as a whole they remained temperate and told the story in a discreet way. I wanted something else. The change that took place in me during the spring may not explicitly show in my work, but it was a major change. My new work is more unfettered. I combine various ingredients and levels. Different worlds. The story is told more polysemously.”
Iisa Maaranen
Born in 1987 in Helsinki. Finalizing her master’s studies in the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. Reached second position at Masters Salon, an exhibition competition targeted at master-level students in Belgium in 2016. Interested in natural pigments and dreaming to one day collect her own ingredients and make her own paints. Also studied industrial design.
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