Taidemaalariliitto

The mind wanders, is full of data and the ability to concentrate is missing. Focus Flees is a sensitive series of tempera paintings that tells a story of a wandering mind in the world of digital age. It flies among the antennas above the roofs, in the meadows and on the sides of the road. Hangs around online. Compares. Runs away. Stares out the window. Dreams. It hovers around like some spirit being that can’t stop. It searches endlessly something. But it doesn’t know what.

Focus Flees is a series of experiential paintings. It doesn’t look at the world through lenses of rationality. Rather, it tries to pierce through the level of knowledge, to find the undefined meanings that lie beneath the surface. Subjects and objects are abstracted. Things and spaces overlap, transform and get layered. Color, light and gesture take over the painting.

Iisa Maaranen (b. 1987) is a visual artist who graduated from the University of the Arts Helsinki in the Department of Painting in 2018. Most recently, her works have been exhibited at Gallery Schwarz Contemporary, Berlin 2022 and in a solo exhibition at gallery Forum Box, Helsinki in 2021. Her paintings are part of the collections of Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Saastamoinen Foundation and Helsinki Art Museum.

Many thanks to the Alfred Kordelin Foundation for supporting the work for the exhibition.