Hanna Saarikoski (born 1978) paints in a disturbing way. Her articulation is not bound by aiming at serial works or otherwise by repeating a recognizable style. The size and shape of the paintings vary from one work to the other. She uses both oils and aquarelles, and masters both techniques to such extent that she is able to greatly vary her styles. Saarikoski’s style is intentional. She works with the painting surfaces on the terms of her themes, and the results can, even within a single painting, look like the contributions of several different artists.
Saarikoski focuses on her paintings as individuals. A connecting factor is aiming at interfaces, often very concrete ones, such as a window as a space divider, or a reflection in a mirror. Even more often, the interface is an imaginary moment between life and death: a space or a time during which it is difficult to define the presence of a human.
Saarikoski deals with the most personal aspects of a human: the subconscious and the memories.
It is hard to get a grasp on the atmosphere of the paintings. Simultaneously, they include both merciful gentleness and creepiness. In the works, death becomes concrete in many ways. On one hand, dying is slow fading away, disappearing from sight, or fleeing. On the other hand, it is breaking away.
The works take advantage of layered meanings without being afraid of clichés. An orchestra of skeletons, as a theme, is popular and thus smooth-worn enough to be used for new purposes. For Saarikoski, a skeleton is rather a metaphor for a dead person than a symbol of death. In the paintings, the skeletons are lifelike. The concrete theme of the paintings is a depicted memory, but thanks to all the associations, the skeletons can be taken, for instance, as buddies of pop legends or Mexican Day-of-the-Dead figures.
Veikko Halmetoja
