Saaraliisa Ylitalo

The painter Agnes Martin said: “Everything, everything, is about feeling – feeling and recognition.”  Her work was about her inner life and awareness of it, as is mine.  I have always felt that I try to make our common human conditions and emotions visible in my work; fear, despair, depression, loss, but also hope, joy, and an inner knowing or calm.

I employ techniques that require a considerable time commitment.  I really relish that time spent with a piece.

I have always said that my work was about my emotional “weather,” between turbulent and calm times.  Between hope and despair.  Really about broken places and how I deal with them.
Now I feel the ocean is a better metaphor.  On its surface it can be stormy, choppy, undulating, or placid, but underneath it is mostly tranquil.  Whereas before the work was about the turbulent surface currently it is about the quiet calm of the ocean floor.  Expressing visually our shared human emotional experiences is what I have always strived to communicate.