TIINA NEVALAINEN and MIRVA VALVANTO
Welcome to the Opening Reception on Friday, November 7, 2008, from 6 PM to 8 PM
TIINA NEVALAINEN & MIRVA VALVANTO
November 8 – November 25, 2008
Tiina Nevalainen – Paintings
Painting is my most natural way of understanding the world. The subjects of my works come from my personal experience of looking. I paint things and themes that interest me visually. I do not aim to capture reality as it is. Instead, I find it fascinating to discover a detail that, through the painting process, expands into the starting point of an entire series. I want to navigate between abstraction and representation in my paintings.
The most important element in my work is color. While creating the paintings for this exhibition, I aimed to build rich, full-bodied color worlds—paintings that verge on abstraction, where color itself forms the surface. I paint with oil on canvas because it best suits my technique and character. The slow drying time of oil paint allows me to carefully consider each step. I enjoy the physicality of painting—the glide of paint on canvas, the scent of painting mediums, the rhythm of the brush, and its rustling against the surface. Painting is a multisensory experience for me.
Painting is always a process of searching and making choices. As a painter, I grow and change through my works. Every completed painting has taught me something new, and every new painting presents fresh questions to explore.
That is where the joy of painting lies.
Mirva Valvanto – Printmaking
In the works presented in this exhibition, I have sought to focus on the quiet cycle of existence—the slowness that emerges from imagined, eternity-seeking moments. The world of dreams and the subconscious carries me away, guided by various symbols: the black wings of a raven or the heavy, silent steps of a stone angel. My goal is to create atmospheres that detach the viewer from the fleeting present, focusing solely on existence—or perhaps on a feeling that, in the viewer’s eyes, gives the work a new, more personal meaning. At the same time, these pieces may also appear as nothing more than a distant glimpse of another, imagined reality.
A waking dream, a momentary escape into the dim shelter of twilight. A pause, a forgetting of the unnecessary. A remembering of the forgotten. A childlike detachment, a play of thoughts. Surrendering to the embrace of shadows. In my works, the cycle of life and nature intertwines with the shifting lights and shadows of the time of day.
The process of making these works demands a moment of stillness amid the rush of daily life, a shutting out of everything else—until only existence and action remain. Even in slow-paced working methods, there is an element of unpredictability and chance, which naturally guide the piece forward. A sketch serves more as an initial impulse, always open to change. More and more, the final result surprises even me. I enjoy this mystery—at times, my work is fueled purely by curiosity. A clean copper plate holds a secret, which I must uncover, line by line, layer by layer, trying to see beyond the surface.