Gracias a la vida/Thanks to life/Elämälle kiitos

2009, oil on canvas 30x40 (each part)

in private collection

The whole autumn 2009 I listened a lot Violeta Parra's Gracias a la vida song. That song is about glorying your life and my father listened it a lot when I was a child. Then he also told me how tragic is the history of that song. After awhile releasing that song Violeta Parra commited suicide. Thought of that has haunted me in my entire life. I can't understand how someone can do such act after praising every little thing that she has had in her life.

And so I did what I usually do when I can't get out of my mind something... I painted that song... or more like the feeling of that song's lyrics. The melody is bit melancholic.

Listen Violeta Parra's Gracias a la vida here.

Finnish version of that song "Elämälle kiitos" by Liisa Tavi is very beatiful too. Jaana Lappo and Merja Onerva has done precise work when they translated the lyrics. Listen "Elämälle kiitos" here. 


Part two:

And part one:

Night in Kyoto/ Ilta Kiotossa

2009, oil on canvas 50x40 


in private collection

Japan theme continues :) This picture is painted from the movie: Memoirs of a geisha.

The nodding doll/ Nyökyttelevä nukke

2009, oil on canvas 30x40

in private collection

This picture is about one of my poems that I wrote few years ago. The poem is about one place where I'll never want to live again. That place was so pressing and restricting that I wasn't myself there. I felt like I was only a someone's muse, tiptoeing geisha and a nodding doll. 

However the geisha in this picture seems to have inner peace and happiness... and so have I... now. Like they say: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" or was it "what doesn't kill you, comes back again and try it even harder"? Nietzsche knew nothing!! ;)

Burning the ice/ Jäitä poltellessa

 

2009, oil on canvas 30x40 

I have a tendency to gather too much to do. I am interested about so many things and I want to make a difference several affairs and places at the same time. That makes me sometimes just too busy and I feel like I'm burning the ice.

There was only red, blue and titanium white in palette when I painted this.

As the rush comes/ Tulee kohisten

2009, oil on canvas, size of one part 55x45

Part One:

 

and part two:

Spring is always beautiful and energetic time in my life. Sun is bright and everything just comes to life, nature and people also.

Silence in a wheat field/ Ja minä olen viljaa

2009, oil on canvas 30x40 

They talk Shhht! about me

2008, oil on canvas 73x60

I hate gossips and gossiping people. I am aware that people have extremely diffrent opinions about me, some love me and some think that I'm the most irritating person in the world ;) And that's fine to me. However sometimes somebody starts to gossip about me, I don't like it but it's insignificant to me unless those talks hurt somebody of my close ones.

When I painted this, I often listened to the radio and there was this Matt Pokora's song "They talk sh*t about me" played over and over again. That song was catchy and the same time a little bit annoying, so what would be more appropriate name for this painting? ;)

Soleá

2008, oil on canvas 35x27

Overly.../Liian...

2008, oil on canvas 65x81

In private collection

Does anybody know the feeling when you are overly sensitive, when you have exposed yourself too much? Then you are just too bare and transparent without any protection...

Let's do some shopping!/Ostaosta!

2008, oil on canvas 30x40

I am a victim of fashion and commercials. I love fashion pics and I think that they are works of art. Those pictures are alluring, beautiful and creative. Fashion photographers have to be imaginative when they create images that are different and unusual. A fashion product has to be portrayed creatively while at the same time conveying style and classiness.

Same time that I love fashion, I hate it. I hate fashion industry, materialism and mass consumption. So I have to struggle between these things in me. Those both ideas are like some little lady sitting on my shoulder and whispering all those things to my ear.