Proximity

Proximity /prɒkˈsɪmɪti/
noun

nearness in space, time, or relationship.

“Proximity” by Tiina Lilja (2020) embroidery and oil paint on board

I’ve had some great news last Thursday: I’m finally going to be off furlough and back to work as a studio painter.  It has been a privilege to dedicate this much time for making my own art, but to be completely honest, I am really keen on returning to a form of normal in September.

Unlike my husband who has been working from home throughout and following lockdown, I have needed to set my own challenges during the Covid-19 crisis.  I would definitely say I was in a bit of a creative slump before the pandemic and the only way to move forward towards the new normal was to change the way I make art.  Focussing only on the positives, the last several months have made me more confident in exploring new ways of making visual art as well as tackling more overtly personal subject matter than ever before.  The first of these experiments, begun in early spring and finished in late July, is Proximity: a piece about my father who I haven’t been able to see since last summer.

proximity detail

“1986” and “Proximity” by Tiina Lilja

Proximity is a mixed media piece, slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper, combining two oil painted miniatures sitting within an embroidered frame.  The portraits, one featuring a young boy around the age of 7 and the other of a slightly younger girl with her head cropped out, are those of my father and me.  In the photographs my painted portraits are based on, we are wearing the same pair of tasselled leather trousers, although by the time I had the honour of doing so, nearly 25 years ago now, they had been cut into shorts.

proximity detail

proximity detail

proximity detail

The reason Proximity took so long to finish was largely due to my indecisiveness.  Having finished the embroidered cover, largely using cotton thread and acrylic yarn, I simply could not choose what I wanted to paint.  Overtly Covid-centred subjects would have felt false – I am not that type of an artist and everything else seemed too mundane.  I left Finland over ten years ago now, but I have never felt this far away from home before.  Of all the things I have missed during lockdown: family, friends and my home in France… it was my dad Juha who I missed the most.  He’s a typical Finnish bloke, not the type to video chat or hang around social media and I have really cherished our long phone calls during this difficult time.

For better or for worse, Proximity is my main lockdown piece.  I have already improved on some of the ideas I first explored with this piece; others I have completely abandoned for now, but it shall always have a special place among my artworks.  I turned thirty just a week ago and the most important thing I am trying to implement, having reached this milestone, is to spend less energy on worrying about what other people think of me.  I lost quite a few followers off my Instagram when I started posting images of these types of mixed media- and textile pieces, but I’ve gained new ones since.  Life is too short to obsess over social media, and not worth living if you are just going to regret every risk and change of direction.

So: take risks, create and don’t lose sight of the things that matter the most – that’s the new normal public service announcement from me to you.

Tiina x

This is probably the most famous picture in the world.

It’s been a weird few weeks so I hope you forgive me for not being desperately active on the blog lately.  But I have been busy in the studio, trying to finish up my furlough paintings and working on some new embroideries.  Even so, finding the motivation to make art has been a struggle.  I surprised myself, really, when I positively leapt on a chance to take part in the Door to Door project organised by Art Aviso.

Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” from Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge 1950’s Encyclopedia (Edited by Enid Blyton), the base of my Door to Door submission.

“This is probably the most famous picture in the world” by Tiina Lilja for Art Aviso Door to Door – Art in time of Covid-19 project. Mixed media on paper, (2020)

The concept is simple: Each participating artist will be supplied with a page from Newnes’ Pictorial Knowledge 1950’s Encyclopaedia selected at random, which will form a basis of an artwork to be exhibited at Lite HAUS Galerie, Berlin in September 2021 as well as joining the active, evolving Art Aviso Door to Door virtual exhibition.  There’s still time to join in – Art Avisos Door to Door – Art in time of Covid-19 project is open to their subscribers based in UK and Europe.

I just finished submitting my artwork “This is probably the most famous picture in the world” , so how about a little “behind the scenes” tour?

Door to Door project by Tiina Lilja – work in progress. Here I have finished off my Mona Lisa photo transfers in two versions. In the end only two made it on the finished artwork.

The different versions for my “Door to Door” photo transfers. In the end I went with the low-contrast one, ironed on patterned cotton.

Door to Door contribution by Tiina Lilja – work in progress

Here’s how I wrote about my contribution:

If imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the finest portrait ever painted.  Arguably the most famous picture in the world, she has earned her place among the most copied images too, through countless reproductions in books and in print, all the way to keyrings and tea-towels emblazoned with that mysterious smile.

Her entry in the Newnes’ Pictorial Encyclopaedia can be found in Volume 7, under Great painters of all Nations- How they lived and what they achieved, on page 13.  She is iconic – and utterly untouchable.  My work is very much concerned with icons and idols, but the only way I felt I could approach the Mona Lisa, was through her numerous copies, from the tastefully informative such as the black and white illustration on my allocated leaf, to the utterly absurd.  A naughty Mona Lisa Halloween costume comes to mind as a good example of the latter sort.

With this in mind, I set out to embroider and draw around a set of photo transfers featuring digitally altered snippets of the page I was allocated.  Beyond scaling everything to fit a sheet of A4 paper, I made no sketch or a plan for the piece as I wanted it to assume its shape organically.  Like in a game of Chinese whispers, the end result is both reminiscent of its origin and removed from it.  A nuanced smile.

As said, I was well chuffed about the project briefing: maybe my page was going to be an awesome medical illustration or an obsolete graph of some sort.  What dropped in my inbox, however, was a black and white rendition of the most famous portrait ever painted: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.  I was not disappointed by any means; just a little lost at first.  The Mona Lisa is not just one of the most recognisable images in the world, but also amongst the most copied.  Any retelling of this image would immediately be compared not just to the page from Newnes’ Encyclopaedia, but to the thousands of other renditions of Da Vinci’s masterpiece.

Door to Door contribution by Tiina Lilja – work in progress

Art Avisos Door to Door project, work in progress

Faced with this dilemma, I decided to focus on the idea of reproduction through repetition rather than simply re-imagining this renaissance icon in 2020.  Two snippets from my allocated page, digitally altered and cropped, became the core of my piece in form of photo transfers, ironed on patterned scraps of cotton.  The rest was left to form freely around a sheet of A4 paper set out as the base for my work.  As said previously, the process best resembled a game of Chinese whispers with an excitingly unpredictable end.

Door to Door contribution by Tiina Lilja – work in progress – with a sliver of that Mona Lisa smile

Sizing up my embroidered elements against a sheet of A4 card.

Door to Door contribution by Tiina Lilja – work in progress

Material wise, I thought it was important to stick with things I had in my studio at the time.  Although I did have to purchase a can of mount spray, I was pleased how the colour scheme of the piece was influenced by other projects I am currently working on, rather than being pre-determined through deliberate design.  I am a slave to habit and breaking out of my usual comfort zone of meticulous planning has truly been my favourite aspect of participating in this project.

If any of this floats your boat at all, pop over to the Door to Door exhibition page to see how other artists have re-interpreted their encyclopaedia pages.