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Emmi Tavela
September, 2018
Helsinki-based painter Emmi Tavela’s new small-scale portraits are based on a series of imaginary conversations. The artist writes:
“For me painting is an attempt to locate silence – a kind of silence that is not just quietness but something deeper, even infinite. Painting is also an attempt to communicate – not just with my audience – but first of all with the painting as an entity which becomes independent of its maker, and also with myself. These portraits are imaginary conversations with imaginary people about dying and eternal life. That they happen to be imaginary is for me not significant.
What is most important in this process – that is clearly a work of fiction – is that there be a real conversation between me and each painting – a true and meaningful dialog.
Part of my aim has been to create rich, nuanced, tender and honest illusions of communication that ring true in ways which allow my audience – you – to continue these dialogues on your own, and on your own terms.
It is my personal belief that a perfect and complete silence comes only in the eternal life which follows our life here on earth. Yet as my work is partly about the potential richness and importance of dialogue, it is both natural and significant to me that some of these imaginary people disagree.
In the end, these paintings are simply paintings. They are about paint and about touch. The end is silence.”