Maaria Jokimies
MEMORIES IN PROGRESS
24.5.-16.6.2019
My paintings are centered around moments of celebration, community spirit and play, oozing with carelessness which becomes a particularly important element. When creating an image, I especially focus on the basics of painting such as composition and color contrasts as well as the feeling of the space and material. I break the figurativeness with excessively bright colors and, in places, with surface-like areas rising alongside the realistically painted areas.
I depict people that are close to me as well as my own memories by using a photograph as a starting point. I feel that our daily lives are made up of ethical questions, privileges and an existential struggle as well as the pursuit of happiness. Like the lens of a camera, we always examine situations from a certain perspective, from our bodies, and we edit the images to create whole memories. A photograph of a particular moment alters our memory. Unlike the cemented narrative of a photograph, a painting gives more space for the inconsistencies and distortions of memories which I show in my works through perspectives.
While working on my latest pieces, I have tried to find different ways of using paint, for example adding and removing it, occasionally giving up and destroying something that already existed by painting new layers. I try to create an entity in which carefully placed details are combined with the random spreading of paint. My paintings seek a seemingly unattainable balance between figurativeness and a gesture, carelessness and anxiety as well as neurotic and relaxed.
Maaria Jokimies (b. 1992) graduated from the Lahti Institute of Fine Arts in 2016 and she is currently working on her master’s studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki.
The exhibition has been supported by Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki.
maaria.jokimies(at)gmail.com
