ART AND ME

"What is media art?" that is the most common question I bump into when explaining people what I do.

According to Wikipedia (New) media art is an art genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies, including digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, interactive art technologies, computer robotics, and art as biotechnology.

Me and media art

I've had had several media art installations in both in the Internet and also in live exhibition spaces. I'm not bound to any specific media, because I think in media art technology or technological platforms are just a tool to express something. Art means for me a possibility to convey a message with a piece of art, and new media provides a very powerful set of tools to convey that message. Media art for me is about combinging different media to create interaction or at least an expression of interaction to the audience. That is why I do not count my digital paintings as media art, but I sometimes name some totally non-digitally created works as media art works.

In some works, I've had web sites as a documentation tool, and the work itself may have been a totally non-digital installation (like in my work "Bazaar of Banalities" that consisted of a flea-market table open to public for three days in Jyväskylä museum).

Why do I paint?

Painting is very important to me. I have been painting part-time, as a serious hobby so to say, for approx. 15 years now. I still feel like I'm just beginning to learn something. I started with oil colours, but nowadays I have been expanding to different materials like soft pastels, coal, aquarelle and mixed materials. Yes, you really can "paint" using coal too!

Painting with computer... well, it's quite lot different than painting by hand on canvas or paper. However, the knowledge I've gained from "real life" painting pays off also in the digital realm.

I found Art Rage software couple of years ago, and after that I have been hooked. Usually I begin by making some sketches by hand or in Photoshop, sometimes using photo colalges as the starting point. Then I move to Art Rage, usually I use the oil paint and pastel tools. I also have a lot of layers in my pictures... Finalization and color corrections I do in Photoshop.

Lately I have been doing more and more painting with other techniques than just oil colour. I have separated my water color paintings to their own page. I love outdoor scenery painting, and aquarelle has proven to be a good technique for it. It is easy to carry and does not demand big canvases to be dragged around. Also it is not so sensitive to weather changes as you'd think. (Just don't leave the painted paper directly to the rain, the water drops will ruin your work...) Watercolour is a difficult and demanding technique, and it cannot be worked on forever. So, at some point I just have to stop painting, whatever the result. I have learned a lot of patience and self-control with water colours...!