Convergences and Sidetracks – The artistic process as conversation 2013    1/5

Mika Hannula: The title of the exhibition? Where does it come from, and what does it refer to?

Hannaleena Heiska: The title of the exhibition is All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. It is a direct quotation from the android Roy Batty’s powerful monologue near the end of the film Blade Runner, the moment before he dies. According to one account, Rutger Hauer improvised the scene.

My paintings are signs of lost moments, just as, years later, a record that you have listened to a lot in the past can frighteningly accurately bring back to mind a certain moment or mood, even a smell.

MH: The paintings in your new exhibition. Where did they start from and how do they relate to your previous exhibition?

HH: After my father died (autumn 2011), I began to be afraid of dying, and to paint pictures – painting them kept the sorrow at bay for a while. I was inspired by the world of my favourite film and I painted versions of the characters I love. Of the constantly weeping replicant Rachael, who believed she was human. Of the replicant Roy Batty, who, aware of his own imminent death, comes down to earth to look for his creator, to demand more time alive. Of the animal replicants and of the sad, neon-lit cities in their endless rain.

There are also portraits of animal heroes, of apes and monkeys that were sent into space. Of brave little creatures travelling towards some unknown destination. Of the ones who, having landed back on earth alive from beyond the firmament, were given a real name instead of a serial number. No.65 a.k.a. Chop Chop Chang a.k.a. Ham. Able. Sam. Yorick a.k.a. Albert VI.

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The new works are a step forwards, both technically and thematically. At one stage, I used oils to paint more in a watercolour style, i.e. I didn’t fiddle about overmuch with the brushwork. I still paint alla prima – i.e. using an all-at-once painting technique (wet-on-wet), but, this time, some of the brushwork is more re-touched, and some of it can be seen just as it was when it happened to emerge from my hand.

The works in the previous exhibition were inspired, alongside popular music, by the idea of existence and the animal-philosophy stuff. Meanwhile, in addition to films, the new works were inspired by personal experience, with the animal issues still there in the background, too. Through the process, my new paintings have turned into a coherent whole; they are like close-ups from a film that was never completed.

MH: A bit more background. Blade Runner? Why does it still interest you, it is so 1980s. Couldn’t you find anything better/worse?

HH: (Haha ha!) I think the theme of the film is more important than the outward style or period. It is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which, for example, emphasizes the animal-philosophy questions more than the film does. And, of course, it explores humanity, what distinguishes us from others. I find this endlessly fascinating.

Blade Runner’s cinematographer has said: “It’s not what you light; it’s what you don’t light.” The same thing applied to painting is fascinating. How much is too much or how little is enough. What has to be left out so that the picture works. Endless, difficult choices in the painting process. I love abundance, and when I paint, I go totally by instinct. In retrospect, it is hard to say why a particular brushstroke was unnecessary and had to be wiped away. But that still got done. Generally I document my working by photographing my paintings at various stages, so as to be able, at least in some way, to understand the process. In retrospect, when I am browsing through the pictures, I notice that the solutions have often been the right ones. You simply have to trust that the whole thing will stand up.

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MH: About the painting process. The course followed by the making of the exhibition, the paths that begin, sometimes continue, and occasionally change shape or come to an end. Which work did the series begin with?

HH: The foremother of the series is a painting called Vanessa, but I still perhaps see the initial work as being the first version of Rachael. Both of them are important works for me.

My painting process requires that I throw myself into it, without any prior knowledge of or compulsion about the end result. It has triggered an insane euphoria about painting. I have also learned, on some level, to regulate my painting energy. If I don’t paint for a few days, but spend them developing ideas, I can keep up the enthusiasm and build up a good head of steam. The concentration succeeds best when there is an imperative need to paint.

MH: In the new series our attention is particularly attracted to the painting’s internal motion, which has largely been achieved with something that is very specific to painting, a gesture of the brush and the hand. In these paintings this creates a special effect: they are simultaneously distinct wholes, while inside them they have enormous tensions and even contradictions. What is the significance of movement and how conscious was it in this case?

HH: To me, the inner tension and dynamic in a painting are precisely its strength. When I am painting, I consciously try to create motion. I want my paintings to have brushwork that is partly, say, the blurring brought by rain, but also the passage of time. The primer that I spread on the painting ground is an essential part of the painting, the brushstrokes painted with coarse gesso take on rhythm and tension in conjunction with the more refined markings of the oil paint. I want the painting to get several levels, even concretely, that can lead the gaze off in their own directions.
 

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MH: Painting and the moving image. In recent years, you have also made very intense videoworks that are quite filmic in their expression. Where did the idea for the videos start from and how does this process compare with painting?

HH: I was already working with the moving image alongside painting when I studied at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. I did various experiments and, for instance, shot on Super 8 film. One difference that I find very interesting is that in painting I tell the story with a single picture, while in video it is possible to use several pictures one after another.

The initial processing of ideas and issues is very similar in both media. It is a complex mesh, which takes time to go through. In the painting process the thinking also happens by doing, and, on top of that, room has to be left for chance, while the shooting of a video has to be planned in advance right down to the last second. Making a video involves close collaboration with the cinematographer and the editor, but when I am painting I am totally alone in my studio with my choices.

The film works Ridestar (2010) and Altered States (2010) in my previous exhibition also influenced my brushwork. Both of them contain a lot of close-ups of the surface structure of the figures. The camera goes slowly through the surface and outlines of the creature, as it were, like brushstrokes do. I aimed for the same relaxed gesture and the bringing out of the structure in several of my paintings in the exhibition. Partly balancing on the borderline between the abstract and the representational, focussing on a certain point and, conversely, on the unfocussed image again.

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MH: Your most recent videowork, Today We Live (2012), is also being shown at the exhibition. How does it compare with your earlier videoworks?

HH: Two of my earlier works contain either an animal or a human being disguised as something else. The Today We Live video, meanwhile, is an anonymous group portrait of real people and has been made using documentary techniques. All my videoworks up to this point are silent films in the sense that there is no dialogue or monologue. I have created an atmosphere or a possible narrative using other means, for instance, by combining music with the image.

In the Today We Live video, apart from music, the mode of expression also comes from the close-ups of faces. The camera records genuine feelings, as it were secretly, and even from annoyingly close to. Occasionally, the subject of the shot suddenly becomes aware of the presence of the camera, and in one frame even looks a little irritated, but in the end the situation still always carries them along with it, and concentration on the moment is restored as though involuntarily. For me, Today We Live is important specifically because of its humanity. The faces have a natural purity and hope about them, and often reveal more then they conceal.

MH: And finally, that very difficult, that nasty word and question. Inspiration? What is it and where does it come from?

HH: Inspiration? On the one hand, I hate the word, but on the other hand, it is still a useful one. At best, inspiration is a state of deep concentration, a flow, which you have to be able to nurture and nourish. It is preceded and assisted by certain routines in the studio. At worst, concentration can be hard to achieve and it always takes self-discipline and raw hard work.