Pirjo Niiranen

Pictures 2003
Universal Prints Hamburg 2003
Pirjo Niiranen

Auszüge

"...
Many of the motifs of the painter Pirjo Niiranen, resident in Germany since 1970, are influenced by her Finnish origins. Boats at anchor, fish and houses – all given an abstract formulation – are often to be seen in her work. In her representations of summer or winter scenes, in pictures suspended between air and water, Pirjo Niiranen consciously and unconsciously reflects her childhood experiences. Pirjo Niiranen creates pictures that contain reminiscences of her childhood.

The charakter of the Nordic landcape flows into her compositions without conscious effort. This identity is reinforced by the use of muted colours and the sparseness of the motifs – a traditional feature of Finnish painting. A touch of melancholy can be felt here.

The range of colours in her paintings ist relatively limited. Yellow, brown an blue are frequently modulated with grey. In a sense her painting is ascetic in the way it dispenses with details, and simultaneously there is a strong focus on the painting as object. Pirjo Niiranen has developed a special technique for creating the surface of her paintings. Working not with brushes but with cloths, the paint ist wiped, rubbed an moulded in many layers onto the surface. Fine lines are scratched or drawn on the paint surface, and sometimes painted over again. Paper ist often the point of departure for her compositions. The form of the surface enters into a charged relationship with the graphic lines an cuts, accentuating elements of the visual content.