ANNE TOMPURIThe land of ice 27.8.2004 – 12.9.2004

The land of ice, the nature of the North represents both
my physical environment and my inner landscape.
At its most rugged, it is an ancient formation of black granite,
like burnt soil scorched to the very core, and at its coldest like icy water,
stopped frozen in mid-flow. Like darkness and light.

Anne Tompuri

Threat of emptiness

Anne Tompuri´s massive new paintings are part of a painting tradition where visuality does not ironise tradition. These paintings verge on the borders of recognisability and are open to many different interpretations. To me, they appear contradictory: beautiful, yet at the same time menacing.

As human beings, we face moments when meanings change, taking on unexpected dimensions. This may result in a momentary feeling of emptiness. Anne Tompuri´s paintings convey a similar feeling.

The black surfaces in Tompuri´s paintings form a background for shapes and figures appearing out of the darkness, shapes and figures whose essence is not confined to any actual space. Despite being abstract, the paintings are physical, with references to the body´s history of sensual experiences. They are states of being created from the inevitability of existence in the world.

Tompuri´s paintings are experiences of sensibility and intimacy. They are provocative. The Ego in the paintings is sensible, in other words vulnerable, passive, susceptible to pain and erotic movement - ethics is skin deep.

Our lives as human beings possessing senses and body constitute a kind of "contact surface". However, contact arising from sensibility is also an indication of our discreteness, of the individual nature of experience. The integration of contact and discreteness finds tangible expression through existence in a world where sensibility provides an interface with these meanings that make life worth living.

Mika Karhu