TERO LAAKSONENAsia, Poseidon´s Temple and blue porcelain 6.2.2010 – 28.2.2010

Passion and glow, vitality and awareness are the subjects of my yearning.

A brilliant starry night in the Pamir Mountains, morning fog on the Mekong River, the red glow of the sun on the Temple of Poseidon, a blue and white porcelain plate, that brave men brought to my table 200 years ago - these are the visible subjects of my paintings. They represent brilliant, strange and terrifying voyages, expeditions and everyday mornings.

Within the atelier, however, I have no other knowledge than what I have acquired through painting.

Painting by hand - using a Renaissance-era tempera emulsion on a cross-weave canvas attached to a frame crafted by a carpenter - is not in line with the information concept of our time. How quickly have we constructed a lifestyle and time concept that flinches from recollecting and forgetting, losing and discovering.

Painting as a form of communication is a way to prepare yourself for the encounters with the new and unknown. In painting the ability to forget and lose is the road to recollecting and discovering.

The ancient virtues Prudence, Fortitude, Purity and Innocence give the belief to aspire to a clarity and openness of mind, a desire to relive the stories of the gods immortally forever, even if the wings on our backs wilt away. Beauty, a beautiful life is not an external expression of grace but a striving, an obligation to be on the side of good, no matter how fragile or weak it is.

Tero Laaksonen