Monthly image: Self-portrait – in my own world by Markus Vaattovaara

Markus Vaattovaara: Self-portrait – in my own world. Oil painting with a palette knife, wood, glas, metal. 2019

My way of working is expressive, in between abstract and performing art. When I start a new piece of work, I use a pen to create a kind of form, from which I begin to build a whole. When working with a painting or a sculpture, the motif usually comes already in the beginning. I start thinking about it, and I may ponder for a long time, before I begin working with the actual piece of work. My motives concern mainly people and their appearances. I follow their gestures and behaviours in different situations.

Time has been an issue close to my paintings and sculptures during the recent year. I’ve been thinking about time, how to deal with time, and how much you should stick to time in certain situations. Sometimes you should simply ignore it. But sometimes it goes without saying that you must stick to it. Maybe through my art, I will find a relief to my thoughts about time.

The spatial work of art, Self-portrait – in my own world, consists of two paintings and five sculptures. The paintings I have painted traditionally in oils using a palette knife. In the sculptures I have used wood and mouth blown glass.

My former occupation was a glass blower and therefore it was an easy choice to take glass along with this piece of work.

I stayed with organic materials with the sculptures. My former occupation was a glass blower and therefore it was an easy choice to take glass along with this piece of work. Glass is a tricky and interesting material, and the other material was wood, so also wood’s new challenges became familiar with a project like this. These two materials, forms turned in wood combined with mouth blown glass, embraced each other as a smoky spatial work of art. Besides the question of defining time, also the question: how to combine the sculptures and paintings in a mutual dialogue, concerned my mind while painting.

Markus Vaattovaara (born 1983) comes from Lapland but moved to Southern Finland for education. At the moment, Vaattovaara lives in Kankaanpää and will graduate as Bachelor of Culture and Arts at the end of 2019.

Contact information: mvaattovaara@hotmail.com

The piece of art by Markus Vaattovaara was on display also at Kuvataiteen Valtakunta 2019 exhibition in Pietarsaari. It is an exhibition of degree programmes of visual arts, produced by all universities of applied sciences. The exhibition concept has been carried out already five times: in Lahti, Turku, Tornio, Imatra and the latest in Rauma, in 2015.