Bio
I am a Helsinki based artist and physicist. I have a PhD in theoretical particle physics from University of Helsinki, and have studied fine art in Kriittinen korkeakoulu, Helsingin taiteilijaseura, Aalto University, and Kuvataideakatemia among others. I am currently working on an MA in Visual Culture, curating and contemporary art at Aalto University, where my studies have included e.g. digital art and the intersection of science and art. I have also done illustrations for several magazines. My interests include the mind, human perception, western and eastern philosophy, literature, and films. However, I don’t have a cat. My preferred mediums are drawing, painting, digital and media art.
Artist Statement
My practice is influenced by my background in particle physics and cosmology as well as my interests in the workings of the mind. Fascination and familiarity with the stranger-than-imagination world found at sub-atomic scales is an unshakable influence for me. I see beauty in its symmetries and hope to express the same beauty, even if in subtle ways.
I often proceed more by intuition than by conscious planning although conceptuality is present in some of my work. Figurative work has been a large part of my practice and the body is an important element in my work for its ability to induce visceral feeling and evoke emotion in the viewer. My work methods include traditional media such as drawing and painting as well as digital and media art.
I aim to employ lightly guided random elements that sometimes veer into the chaotic. I want to stimulate each viewer’s unique visual thinking at the subtle boundary where incomprehensible becomes recognizable. I am intrigued by various transitions: from science to art; from aggressive to gentle; from objective to subjective; from mass and energy to people, feeling of joy and the smell of coffee; from the light, that enters our eyes and is transformed into synaptic excitations, to form, color and line that appear in the consciousness.
My goal is to provide the viewer with the joy of, in the words of William James, “the victorious assimilation of the new”— the coherent perceptual experience of something she has never quite seen before.
ptiitola@gmail.com
