CitySummer (AOTM)

Hey, guise! ^_^

Again a month has gone by and it's spring in Finland. Well it's practically summer, but compared to last week's heat wave, we're cooling down for now. It was so hot and nice last week. But that's pretty much how it goes every summer, we get a heat wave in late May- early June and then the rest of June is cold and rainy --_--
You like my new hair in the banner xD I'm a brunette again <3 blonde hair was fun, but I think brunette hair fits me much better.

About this entry, I thought about reviewing Jasper Goodall, however, I'm taking part in a group art show in June-July so I figured I could talk about the work I'm going to be showing there. Hence you may expect my review on Goodall in late June. I'm not making myself the 'Artist of the month', the show CitySummer is the 'AOTM'. I kinda swore to myself that I wouldn't skip a single 'AOTM', but since I have only today to post this entry I came to a conclusion that those who are coming to see the show might wanna learn about the idea behind my work for CS. Of course you can view the paintings on my website and they are available for purchase. I'm also thinking about continuing this series after we finish the show.

CitySummer is the name of our show and it's actually Akvart's (the gallery in Helsinki) annual show. Same name, different artists (well some of the artists take part in the show every year).
The currator only told us how large out works could be and what kind of frames we were allowed to use, but that was it. The topic of this show gave me quite a fright. Right from the start I had an idea to make lovely cityscape/monument paintings. Like those lovely paintings you can buy in Rome, Paris, Lisbon etc. Like a painting of the Fontana Di Trevi etc. I wanted to do lovely city scapes and monuments with peole posing next to/near them. My first painting was about Paris, a lady on top of a hill, sitting on a stone ledge holding her big hat and behind her is the Eiffel tower and the Parc du Champ-de-Mars. I still like that painting very much. But too bad cityscapes/monuments are done to death. You can buy an artist made painting of the Eiffel tower anywhere in Paris. I became literally scared and was rather depressed about what to make for the show.

I brainstormed for a month. I wanted to do something with cityscapes and if you are familiar with my work, you know that 'garbled and smudgy' (as I like to call this) type of painting isn't my style. Far from it actually. So I tried to think how I could  make cityscapes interesting.
I have a vast collection of photographs from my travels and some of them are so good that I could exhibit them like that.  That's when I realized that I could do "mash-up" of photograps and imagination. I could use the photographs I have of Helsinki like that, but alter it so that other things are happening in the final image.

Töölönlahti. 2012. H.M.

 "Töölönlahti" is the first painting I made. This place is a real place in Helsinki. I merely altered the background because that water is actually a gulf, on the opposite shore there are just rocks and few houses. I made this new background to go with the theme of this series. The geese were there for real, they tend to make camp in this park every summer xP

I named this series 'Summer City' and I imagine it to be a real place somewhere, but not here. Summer is eternal in Summer City and its people only know leisure and pleasure. Their only purpose is to excist and enjoy their lives =) Summer is my favourite season, so I wouldn't mind living in Summer City. However it's not an ordinary city, humans have obtained a way to really live their lives as they see fit. As we can see in the painting above, the woman on the background loves to fly. She has made a pair of wings and can now fly with the geese. The girl in front is just posing for the person taking her picture. Desire and leisure really come together here =)

To me Summer City is a mixture of Helsinki's tranquility and Sydney's tall buildings. I really fell in love with Sydney and I'd so much like to live there. Too bad it's so far away from everything --_-- (I'm a European after all, you can't move out of Europe and not miss it). "Töölönlahti" is a photo a real photo. To be honest, that girl in front is me. I posed for this picture, and I always wanted to use it somehow because the atmosphere and surroundings were interesting. In 'Summer City' we'll see other paintings like this. Original photographs which I have turned into paintings. Like the painting below. 

Munkkiniemi. 2012. H.M.

 This scene is a photograph too. I didn't alter it, though the real girl in the photo doesn't have long green hair like this girl does. I imagined this 'Summer City' resident is a mermaid (hush, this is a secret ;) ), but the others don't know it. In reality this is quite a fantastic photo and I really like to thank my good friend from Germany for posing ^_^ She really liked the photo and people kept calling her Ariel. I'm really happy she liked the photo and now I had the pleasure to use it in my series. At first I wasn't too fond of this painting, but now that I look at it in its frames, it looks pretty awesome ^_^ In my mind this mermaid is living in Summer City, but she has disguised herself as human to protect her secret. She comes to this beach often for a swim.

Bear. 2012. H.M.

This last image is imagination all the way xD I can't exactly recall how this image came to be. I remember RJ and I were goofying off and talking about character costumes people have to wear. Like at Disneyland or Moominworld. We were talking about this 'funland' in Finland where she thought she might apply. She'd then wear this big happy bear character costume. At some point we were talking about how some characters in Pokemon have like, I don't know, models or servants by their side (in weird uniforms!) all the time. So I (or maybe it was RJ) thought how funny it would be if RJ, in her costume, had like these harem girls by her side all day long. We thought that must be one of the bizzarest things ewah O_o It sounded so weird that I had an sudden urge to sketch this idea and make it into a painting. 

Here we see Mr. Bear with his faithful...eh..followers.. Bear has taken charge of the city's underground scene. He and his followers are always close by. At first I thought he'd be the black sheep of the society, but I have changed my mind since I'm in the middle of creating two youngters who unofficially rule Summer City. I think Mr. Bear is Huggy Bear, sort of. Somewhere between a criminal and a good guy. Bear could be the guy people come to to make their more extravagant dreams come true (like learn to fly). And of course some girls wish to join him cuz he's so darn cute! This painting took a lot of time, trust me =P

These are few examples of what's to come at CitySummer. I have 5 more paintings for the show. I'm hoping that people find them as beautiful and entertaining as I do. I love stories very much and hope that people see stories in my paintings. I'm having a lot of fun painting these paintings and perhaps a little bit of that joy shines through them <3 The mediums I use are Aquarelles, Gouache and Sai japanese watercolour pens (markers to be precise). 

I hope you liked this entry. And for those of you who are coming to see the show, I'll see you then! <3

Thank you for reading. Panty out! 
See you!