MINNA JATKOLAFast mind 5.9.2009 – 27.9.2009

‘Only You Can Make You Happy´ is sung in the hit by the pop band Au Revoir Simone with the same title. This particular statement could be one starting point for the motifs in my paintings, too, although I would add a question mark.

My exhibition features paintings from the last three-four years, from a period when I have systematically tried to concentrate, relax, and be glad and happy. I didn´t necessarily succeed in these intentions very well. Frenzied anxiety, wild enthusiasm and constant information flow insisting on one´s attention combined with a fast-working mind often merely leads to a state of overdrive, where there is no room to stand still.

The motifs in my paintings have sprung from various modes of action, series of events, situations of choice and dialogue styles that I have perceived to define and modify behaviours and lifestyles around me, both in the real and in the virtual world. As visual two-dimensional surfaces, the paintings could be seen as encapsulations of my experiences, perceptions, and my presence, too; as imprints of the place where one has stepped aside, experienced happiness, and where one through isolation, separation, has searched for communication, inclusion, bonding.

A fast mind stimulates thinking and creates a state of mind where one´s ability to perceive is refined into an overwhelming feel for life. Dismantling individual signs and removing the structures that cover them is a slow but relieving process, and transferring them onto the canvas highly meditative and intoxicating. Isolating and disintegrating, organising and bringing the pieces back together concretely, with your own two hands, may make you feel you are in control and have the opportunity to interact in this world of ours, constantly replenished and looking to new horizons.

My journeys to India in 2008 and 2009, the births of my three godchildren and the occasional desire of people to love and do good have had a significant effect on my paintings on display.

Minna Jatkola