What is your relationship to the tradition of painting?

It has influenced me. Especially when I was a student. How consciously I have confronted it and been interested in it, has varied too. Generally I would say that you can see from the works where each of us keeps and gets their material. On the other hand, it is extremely important not to get stuck and become bogged down in a particular standpoint. It is easy to get stuck in a style and method that you have learned and mastered, and to produce painting that looks exactly as it is supposed to at that time. I intentionally try to move on, and constantly to take my work in some direction.

It is hard for me to make a list of names, but the scale is quite broad. It starts with Mark Rothko's paintings, which at one time powerfully influenced me; mostly their economy of expression and way of making a surface. I could also mention the contemporary German painters, who I got to know when I was studying in Frankfurt in 1995-1997. They have a kind of characteristic power and drive, an expressive execution. Then I could mention Agnes Martin, whose works I don't find particularly interesting, but whose writing is important to me.

The possibilities of painting?

Limitless. The possibilities and the existence of painting are self-evident to me. Already early on, I understood that it is exactly the right medium for me. And this was and is a great relief. Lots of people spend a long time looking for the right medium and material for them. Painting is an extremely challenging medium and it seems to me that I am constantly developing. It may sound silly, but I love painting.

What are the starting points for your paintings?

That varies quite a lot. Sometimes the starting point can even be something physical and concrete. I once did a six-month artist's residency in Switzerland and after that I concentrated on painting the light I experienced there. I don't use photographs, or even really make sketches. Drawings, yes. The starting point is emotional memories.

One clear, frequently recurring starting point is various international women's magazines. I don't know, but I would assume that browsing through fashion magazines is quite a standard practice for many visual artists. It may be embarrassing to admit that you look so carefully at what is in the latest Vogue, you should probably go out into nature to get influences, but visually the pictures in these magazines are simply of such a high standard and so interesting, starting right from their use of colour and from how the pictures are cropped.

The crucial point, however, is that all these starting points are only suggestive. You have to be really meticulous, but you still have to trust that the work will develop and in itself take you forward.

What do you read?

Helsingin Sanomat (the main Finnish daily newspaper), I still read that slavishly every morning. I somehow have to know where things are going and what is happening. I also read a lot of books. Recently I have been reading biographies of Finnish composers Einojuhani Rautavaara and Ralf Gothoni.

Why the emphasis on music? Does music have a particular significance for you?

Definitely. It comes from my family background, I am the child of two musicians. Music is important to me and it provides an interesting point of comparison, because it is by nature so universal. I personally would like my work to be as touching as a piece of classical music, but that kind of comparison never works. It is wrong for all concerned.

It is obvious that in a certain sense painting is quite confusing. Its way of communicating is demanding, and perhaps a bit clumsy. At the same time, I am totally convinced that painting offers a very great many different levels of feelings and messages, if only the viewer is ready to take in, experience and see them.

Your relationship with the subject matter and emotions in the paintings?

I don't know. The subject matter or starting point can be an emotional state, or shift. In the very latest paintings the subject matter is concentrated on spatiality, on giving it shape. Perhaps it could be described by saying that I don't want to use exclamation-mark-like stress in paintings, the works should rather remain sufficiently open and alive.

Is this spatiality perhaps by nature quiet and expectant, an empathy that invites us to 'be with'?

At any rate, they do not consciously turn in on themselves. It is a question of encounters, of the way the colours and the different elements come together in the painting. They may be expecting something, in the sense that I want to push the viewer a bit, to take the trouble and to be with the painting. At the same time, I try to make the paintings light, to appear as though they came about effortlessly. I don't like it when the finished work reveals the Passion play acted out in its making. That makes them too heavy and oppressive. Of course, the work process can be very demanding, but you have to be able to bluff a kind of clarity, relaxedness and airiness into the end result.

Autobiographical elements in your works?

They are unavoidably present, even if not directly. It is ultimately a question of life and living. Specifically of the fundamental questions contained in the titles of the works. I only give the works names once they are completed, but they are very descriptive. Quite frequently the theme is human relationships.

In fact, my own personal situation and development are also visible in the works. Currently I am making largely semi-figurative painting, but in my very first solo exhibition the paintings were of people, often self-portraits, which is in the end what it comes down to. I set about breaking away from them, because I also wanted to establish a distance from myself. After a time, it felt important to go somewhere else, not to keep hammering on some found style or subject matter.

Mika Hannula

Translated by Mike Garner

Tiina Elina Nurminen
Summer, (Kesä)
2001-2002
Acryl on MDF
37,5 x 43

Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Tiina Elina Nurminen
Together, (Yhdessä)
2002
Acryl and oil on canvas
140 x 120

Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Tiina Elina Nurminen
I Wait for You, (Odotan sinua)
2001-2002
Acryl and oil on canvas
170 x 160

Photo: Jussi Tiainen