Matter as a fact – Reima Nevalainen

The human figure in painting and drawing is material that varies, changes, wears out, and lives. It springs, hangs, and hums as it settles into the space of the painting. I paint using mixed techniques, which include acrylic, oil, latex, and spray paints, collage, and sand. The texture of the materials and the bodily associations they evoke, both in the act of creation and in the viewing experience, are essential in my works, even if it’s just paint on canvas or a line on paper. Form and its material emerge in the painting as an unknown substance, yet it is concrete and a new substance of the body.

Painting must be done again and again. I cannot avoid the destruction of the image if I want to tame the material and exhaust the painting completely. Perhaps the destruction of the image is an analogy for receiving the painting in a suitable mental state where the viewer is ready to let go of searching for meaning and can experience the empty image, like nature in its purest form, as hypnotic. Perhaps it is possible to see everything recognizable and familiar in both the image and outside of it as new, non-representational.

In this sense, I aim for perfection. Ultimately, it is the simplest question around which images, words, and sounds seem to endlessly revolve in many forms. The wordless is the most spoken and the foundational layer in the pursuit of fulfillment. It is this constant inaccessibility that moves us. The pursuit of perfection creates continuity, but achieving it would be the end of everything. Although I cannot control the viewer’s experience and my own painting process is more important than the end result, I hope my paintings can allow moments without a narrator, a story, or the need for either—counterbalancing the immaterial image.

This text was created with AI assistance.