Wonder Painting

Whenever I look at pictures, paintings, sculptures or encounter any form of art, I’m looking for my own personal experiences and impressions that intertwine with the subject of the observed piece. One of the most important things I try to hold on to in my work process is to identify myself with the work, to be able to convey directness and the feeling of personal involvement. The last couple of years I have been getting more and more fascinated by the relation between the past and present of the individual, the complexity that is the development of one’s personality. A process that is constantly there in our everyday life and yet so hard to capture, despite its importance. So many negligible things and moments that have a potential retrospective effect on the development of one’s personality. It might seem a banal thing, but it is exactly its triviality that makes it so easy to fail to notice how important it is in fact. I started working on this topic because I realised that my thoughts, feelings and attitudes can be traced back to certain former experiences, often rooting in my childhood. Basically, I work with a certain kind of visionary or dreamlike imagery similar to the way memories and dreams can seep through consciousness, or the way we try to call back reminiscences. These are in fact conscious or subconscious memories and experiences that can break through or flash in at any moment of our usual train of thought. Besides these, I find it interesting that often we don’t really pay attention to each other and despite what we believe or pretend, we don’t really understand, don’t even truly try to understand each other. There are many symbols in art history that have been interpreted in various different ways, and are still free to any interpretation depending on the observer or the circumstances. The use of such symbols works with their ambiguity on purpose to point out the danger of treating certain relations and connections superficially. Thus the questions that concern art historical, art theoretical or social issues/problems are not directly displayed, but only feature within the frame of personal context, reason of which is that I try to kindle a feeling of connection in the observer towards the topic.