Elisa Matikainen

I became a visual artist as a result of my studies in ceramics. I first studied at the Kuopio Academy of Design. After graduation, I moved to Helsinki, began my visual art studies at Art School Maa in Suomenlinna and eventually graduated a Master of Arts from the University of Art and Design.

For several years, my work has focused primarily on drawing; for me, it is the dearest and the simplest way of observing the world and its phenomena. I mostly find the ingredients for a picture in nature (the different states of water interest me: rain, fog, snow, ice) which are then transformed during the drawing process into a whole different world internalized in the mind, into interpreters of the experience of existing. My drawings usually move within the silence of the black, white and gray, and in a kind of timeless world, leaving colour and noise behind the pictures. I am specifically interested in working with thin, translucent paper and in trying to draw more three-dimensionally, conquering space. I haven’t completely abandoned colour either.

At the Saari Residence, I can focus undisturbed on writing an artist’s book that contemplates shyness. I will work on the book’s text and on the picture story intertwined within it.