Taidemaalariliitto

Hi,

It has been a while since we last spoke and I felt the need to clarify some things, therefore I am writing you this letter. I do not know if you remember the last time, what I told you, about the incident? I now feel the urge to come clean, I may have lied. Or maybe not lied, maybe amplified is the word I am searching for, or maybe rather abstract than amplified some of the turns of the event. I got so caught up in the plot myself and just wanted to tweak it a bit to make it more intriguing, just some small aesthetic changes, to make the story better and to make me a better storyteller. To give me a sort of shimmering allure, that you would look at me and cling on to every word I said, so that you would not turn your gaze away from me and start to think of a story someone else had told you.

Maybe I should give you an example of the untruths, if it helps you remember the story or to just get a better grip of things.

I said that it was an extraordinary blue, but it was actually straight from the tube, ultramarine, but if I think about it, it is quite special, rich and deep. So, maybe that was not the best of examples.

Okay, see here is another one, the place of the incident, the one I told you about, it was not a real place. Or maybe “not real” is the wrong word, because who decides when a place is real? I have thought about it a lot. I told you about all the details, colors and shapes, so therefore they exist in me and you, and if you told my story to someone else then they also know about the place where everything went down.

So, maybe there were no lies or exaggerations in the story? Now I start to doubt myself and how I remember things. Maybe it was exactly as I told you?  And what did I actually tell you? I am starting to feel that this letter is maybe not necessary, I mean to be fair, I never said that I was an honest narrator. I mean, I never gave you a reason to trust me, or did my eyes give you a warm feeling or did my wet tongue, how it moved in my mouth, make me believable? Did you not hear how the story changed for each word, did you not feel that the colors, setting, characters were caricatures or symbols?

Next time we meet, I will tell you another story, of what happened the day after the incident, what happened with the place, how it crumbled and then took a new shape. You will not believe when you hear about it, but it happened, I promise 🙂

XOXO

Tales from the land of Oblivion is an exhibition touching upon subjects connected to popular culture, storytelling through picture and painting as both method and content. It is also about being a painter, weaving a story while working, making decisions, erase, add on, change, regret, rearrange. Repeat.

The exhibition is supported by Svenska Litteratursällskapet, Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Svenska Kulturfonden.