HERE – Maria Liitola

I graduated on October 31, 2011, from the Turku Academy of Fine Arts, specializing in painting. This is the second time I have graduated from a four-year art school, having also graduated from the Pori Art School in 2003. In total, I have accumulated 13 years of artistic study since I first began my art education.

I live and work in Rymättylä, Naantali. I am primarily a painter, although photography accompanies me both as a method in the process of painting and as an independent art form. My working technique is interdisciplinary and experimental: with photography as the starting point, the technique is a blend of watercolor painting, acrylic painting, and oil painting, while still maintaining the essence of the photograph within the images.

At the heart of my work is the human being and humanity. I depict a person’s “anti-portrait”: a human image that may not necessarily represent the original model in terms of features, and the person may almost entirely disappear into the image, becoming an indistinct figure, so that the portrayal of existence, character, and theme becomes the main focus of the work. Sometimes, the work doesn’t have a model at all; I act as a mannequin, interpreting things I want to depict: events and fragments from both my own and others’ life experiences. It’s like acting in front of the camera, yet it’s the most sincere truth: the process requires focus, a meditative immersion into the emotional state, experiencing and reliving it. I aim to create the atmosphere of the theme within the workspace and then paint or photograph through it. This process is an essential part of the piece.

The works speak about existence: the boundaries of existence and the experience of color, shape, and material. I’m interested in existential questions: the limitless nature of being, the uniqueness and experience of the individual, the search for meaning in life, and a certain anxiety that makes one feel transparent: is there uniqueness after all in a world of millions of individuals?

In my works, I explore themes on a broad scale, ranging from the mind and depression to birth, change, and death, presenting a kind of cross-section of life’s diversity. I am fascinated by what life looks like through the eyes of others, how emotions are experienced, and how drastically life can toss a person around, without them being able to truly influence it. It’s about being and not being, here and now.

This text was created with AI assistance.