"Painting is the art of bodies, for it knows only the skin. It is skin throughout. Skin colour is another term for local colour. The colour of the skin is a challenge posed by the millions of bodies in the art of painting. It is not about incarnation […] but of a simple flesh colour, carnation, and of vibration, colour, wavelength and hue in a place, in some event in existence." Nancy, Jean-Luc: Corpus. Gaudeamus 1996, p. 31.
Tiina Elina Nurminen's new paintings are airy spaces of colours glowing with a soft light. They are made of numerous gauze-like, almost translucent, layers of oil and acryclic paint. They suggest that the artist's strategy was to capture brilliant light on the surface of canvas or hardboard so that one can sense the power and impact of light, not only visually but also in a tactile sense, for its warming effect to be almost felt on the skin In the space of colour created by the painting the theme or subject often remains open, mainly dependent on the viewer's personal associations. Colour becomes the most important factor in the world of the painting, a sign seeking to transform in the mind of the viewer into the emotion that it represents in the painting.
In her paintings, Nurminen observes the behaviour of colour on the surface of a painting and how its different layers of colour act in relation to each other. Colour is perhaps the most important factor in her paintings. It is a material with which the artist claims to be very careful, for colour plays an important role in giving a work of art its mood. Nurminen has said that for her colour is ultimately the easiest factor in constructing a painting, as she feels that she has a deep feel precisely for it, for the particular tone or hue that she seeks, and how to achieve it.
Painting in the realm of the gaze
In her paintings, Tiina Elina Nurminen replaces representation with pure effects that have no distinct references. The materiality of the painting and the mood created by the materials lead the viewer’s perception towards states of mind, emotions and the imagery of dreams and memories. Nurminen’s paintings often remain deliberately beyond the domain of language in an area of visual inspection by presenting a mixed array of unlocalized and sometimes even slightly imprecise initial visual themes on the surface of the canvas.
The paintings deliberately avoid equivocal interpretations and they rely on the strength of their existence to create a relationship between themselves and the viewer. The possible abstraction of a work, however, does not preclude the possibility to read figurativeness into it. In its openness, the painting will permit a variety of interpretations of its own world of form and colour. On the other hand, it can be almost impossible to say what a painting represents, because it appears to be seeking its ultimate form even in the situation in which it is viewed.
On the stratification of the painting
Nurminen’s technique of painting requires several superimposed surfaces, as she constructs her works layer by layer and stage by stage, with time. Although several layers of paint have been applied on the ground of a work, the latter will show through them, because the painted layers are as thin as the human skin. The lower, previous layer of paint will show like bluish veins under the skin, and it can never be completely hidden from the viewer. The pearly white or metallic silver surface covers layers of paint throbbing beneath them as soft-contoured relief shapes and seeking to come forth from under the surface.
In Tiina Elina Nurminen’s works, painterliness is achieved with light means, without profuse volumes of colour that would easily give the piece a heavy and oppressive mood. Nurminen’s feel for the layers of paint is light and airy. She will often work on a large surface with a small brush. The traces of her work, the painter’s gesture, will then remain live and visible on the surface.
For the artist, treating the surface of a work is an important stage in painting process, because when doing so the idea of the painting is in the mind, beginning to take shape and mature towards its final form. Various forms and figures emerge during the process, because they are not "finished" when the work is begun, but are discovered, as it were, along the way as the painting is under preparation. The process of creating the painting is still present and it can be observed in the finished work, for the alterations and changes made during the process to the surface of the canvas and the hardboard are registered in the numerous translucent layers of oils.
Working on a smooth, light-coloured background, Nurminen squeezes and places thick globs of paint, aggressive elements on the surface of an otherwise seemingly peaceful ground. These forms are sensuous and juicy, appearing at times to be almost alive. Emerging boldly from the two-dimensional painted surface of the ground they are alluring and tempting. Paint squeezed directly from the tube onto the surface becomes something separate from its immaterial background of colour, and it defies gravity as it pushes itself out of the surface of the painting towards the viewer. The patterns formed by the thick and meandering bands of paint attract the touch.
A synthesis of painting and drawing
Painting and drawing are the main techniques of Tiina Elina Nurminen’s work. Of particular interest in her paintings is the way in which these two different techniques combine on the surface of the paintings. Nurminen not only paints on canvas and hardboard but also uses her brush to draw both abstract and more figurative visual themes on the surface of a painted background. The artist does not regard drawing to be in any way secondary to painting . On the contrary, the mark of draughtsmanship re-emerges again and again in Nurminen’s works.
The importance of the line as one of the main elements of Nurminen’s paintings is specifically emphasized in her drawing-like painting technique. A line in oil drawn with the brush on an acrylic ground is light and rhythmic, and in places even fragile. According to the artist’s own interpretation, a painted line should be relaxed and vivid in order to please the eye of the viewer. Nurminen’s drawing, which at first sight may seem clumsy, is in fact a studied and carefully chosen effect, like the artist’s brand. Using broken and staggered lines, Nurminen seeks a form, the figure of the body, on the surface of the painting.
Kati Kivinen
