• Suomi Finnish fi
  • English English en

    Outi Kotala Artfolio

    • Gallery
      • Paintings
      • Media art
    • Artist statement
    • Curriculum Vitae
    • Contact

    Archive for: Paintings

    My paintings and drawings, material varies from oil to pastels to ink to aquarelle to…

    • "Early summer — Alkukesä". Oilpastels on paper 45 x 45 cm, 2022.

    “Early Summer”

    16.8.2022
    16.8.2022

    The early summer, when green emerges and all is full of chrolophyll-green leaves, grass and seedlings! The short period of bright and vibrant light green, before everything settles to it’s customary dark green. A colour that, claimed the Finnish national painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, dominated the Finnish landscape during the summer so much, he wanted to escape it to somewhere else there’d be also other colours to paint.

    Unlike him, I love this time of the year, spring turning into summer. I got the inspiration to this painting on a cloudy early June day, when absence of direct sunlight seemed to enhance the green colours in nature to almost neon-like levels.

    “Early summer “. Oilpastels on paper 45 x 45 cm, 2022.

    by Outi
    • "Growth — Kasvu". Oilpastels and colour pencils on paper 49 x 39 cm, 2022.

    “Growth”

    12.3.2022
    12.3.2022

    A waxing moon I saw from my studio window one spring night. Waxing means that the Moon is “growing”: the Moon becomes visible again after the new Moon.

    Last couple of years have been challenging for all of us. For me, it has been a time of  psychological, emotional and artistic growth. This work is a personal metaphor to this process, a process just in the beginning, but promises to grow into a full golden glow of a full moon in the night sky. Just like the Moon, we people go through the same cyclic process of growing and diminishing, of action and rest… like planets on their journey across the deep dark infinity of space.

    “Growth — Kasvu”. Oilpastels and colour pencils on paper 49 x 39 cm, 2022.

     

    by Outi
    • "Hate - Love" oilpastels on paper 50 x 33 cm, 2021

    “Hate–Love”

    27.9.2021
    27.9.2021

    “Hate – Love” oilpastels on paper 50 x 33 cm, 2021

    by Outi
    • "Innerconnectedness II / Sisäisyys II". Oilpastels on paper, 29 x 29 cm, 2021.

    “Innerconnectedness II”

    5.6.2021
    5.6.2021

    “Innerconnectedness II / Sisäisyys II”. Oilpastels on paper, 29 x 29 cm, 2021.

    by Outi
    • "Cloud I". Oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2020

    “Cloud I”

    16.5.2021
    16.5.2021

    I got interested in different cloud formations in the turn of this decade (2019-2020). In this painting a single cloud had drifted in front of the sun on an otherwise a clear, sunny sky. The cloud is here seen from below, and it creates a stunning effect when it covers the sun.

    The colors of the object (cloud) and it’s background create a tension, that is at the same time harmonious but also electrifying. The object is settling into the space. A cloud works here as a metaphor for the transience of everything: born out of water vapor, a cloud changes it’s size and shape almost constantly, until it disappears again.

    This series is inspired from Buddhist tradition and the concept of ‘blue sky mind’: the expansive and vast, luminous, calm and clear mind that is always a part of us. This mind is just often hidden, at least partly from us, by thoughts, mind noise, emotions etc. These thoughts and “mind noise” may temporarily blanket our real state of mind, like clouds cover the blue sky sometimes.

    “Cloud I”. Oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2020.

    by Outi
    • "Unity of Everything / Kaiken ykseys". Oilpastels on paper 29 x 29 cm, 2020

    “Unity of Everything”

    10.3.2020
    10.3.2020

    This work tries depict a concept or a metaphor called “Indra’s net”: Indra’s net (also called Indra’s jewels or Indra’s pearls, Sanskrit Indrajāla) is an ancient Eastern metaphor used to illustrate the concept of interconnectedness of everything in the universe. “Indra’s net” is an infinitely large net of cords owned by the Vedic god Indra, which hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology. In this metaphor, Indra’s net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels.

    It also reminds me of the famous poem by William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”, first lines:

    To see a World in a Grain of Sand
    And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
    Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
    And Eternity in an hour
    (Source: PoetryFoundation.org)

    “Unity of Everything / Kaiken ykseys”. Oilpastels on paper 29 x 29 cm, 2020.

    by Outi
    • "Cloud" — Soft pastels on paper 2019. 63 x 34,5 cm.

    “Cloud”

    4.7.2019
    4.7.2019

    This soft pastels work has been made on the lakeside during summer 2019 and it took a few days in the outdoors to finish. Every morning I settled into the lakeshore, had a short meditation session and set to work. “Cloud” depicts a giant cloud that has settled over the pink lake and islands, like it was a living, breathing thing. You can think that the drawing contains several layers and meanings beside the depiction of physical surroundings. This is the first work about clouds that I did and set in motion a series of “Blue sky” paintings I started to work on later in 2020.

    “Cloud” — Soft pastels on paper, 63 x 34,5 cm, 2019.

    by Outi
    • he Flower of Intuition / Intuition kukka. Oilpastels on paper, 29x29 cm, 2019.
From the Flowers of the Paradise Garden -series

    Fruits and Flowers of the Paradise series

    5.4.2019
    5.4.2019

    From the beginning of the year 2019 I’ve worked with a theme of Paradise’s Garden. I’ve visualized flowers and fruits that represent the lost harvest of the Paradise: feelings and traits of the early human kind that nowadays seem hard to incorporate into one’s daily life.

    Here are some of the drawings made with oil pastels on paper 2019 from the Fruits of the Paradise Garden and Flowers of the Paradise Garden -series.

    by Outi

    Hiidenvesi Lake in the Rain

    15.5.2018
    15.5.2018

    This oilpastels work was done on the lakeside during summer 2016 and it took a few days in the outdoors to finish. That specific summer was really cold and rainy, and the work depicts a view of the lake Hiidenvesi, as it was during those rainy days of July. The colors are muted to grayish green and blue and the lake surface seems almost white. There are just the basic elements: water, air, earth and the forest. Rain creates a pattern of blue-gray dashes all over the landscape, creating a peaceful and serene atmosphere. Even if the artist herself had to sit in the rain in her raincoat, trying to protect the paper from soaking by putting it under a transparent huge umbrella!

    “Hiidenvesi Lake in the Rain”, oilpastels on paper,  71 x 52,5 cm, 2016

    by Outi

    Invitation

    29.10.2014
    29.10.2014

    Oil on canvas, approx. 90 cm x 90 cm, 2014.

    I saw this image in a dream. It depicts a starting point of a journey, or invitation to an initiation ceremony, something to do with waking up and growing up to full spiritual and creative potential.

    0 Comments/by Outi
    Page 1 of 212
    • English
    • Suomi

    Search

    Categories

    Archives

    Recent Comments

      Meta

      • Log in
      • Entries RSS
      • Comments RSS
      • WordPress.org

      Interesting links

      Besides are some interesting links for you! Enjoy your stay :)

      Pages

      • Artist statement
      • Contact
      • Curriculum Vitae
      • Gallery
      • Privacy notice
      • Welcome!

      Portfolio categories

      Art works Community art Drawings Exhibitions Installation Media art Paintings
      © Copyright - Outi Kotala Artfolio - WordPress Premium Theme by Kriesi