Die Ghul Show with AINITOLONEN!

Mar 5, 201320 min read

Deviation Actions

GawrilaGhul

Published: Mar 5, 2013

2.4K Views

: Welcome to my humble show,

!
Do you enjoy being here?

: Thank you. I'm very happy for your invitation.

: And how happy I am to finally have you here!

Aini…

Oh, AINI…!!!

Or would you rather prefer to be called "queen of abstracts…?"

: Well. one of my friends calls me Queen of Abstracts, but that's reserved only for him, so please call me Aini, don't need any honorifics

: Well but that's not some kind of special title, that's just WHAT YOU ARE!

And we're about to prove it here!

But I think before showing any examples of that, we should first make our noble audience familiar with why your show hasn't been on much earlier!
So, tell us please! How was your last EXHIBITION?

: Oh, you're too kind

My exhibition? I was very pleased to have it held in the most impressive gallery in Helsinki, Laterna Magica's Tile Gallery, an old brick walled room, I think it was the perfect surroundings for my works. I got some very great response from it, the best perhaps, when one of my guests burst in tears when seeing my "Birth". I think that´s the most valuable response any artist can get, that the images you're showing, move people, like one guest said: they hit straight to the subconscious. Apart from that, got of course these comments like "are these photographs, they look like paintings or graphics". So, all and all, a great experience.

: I agree… It's always good to MAKE PEOPLE CRY!

But seriously, I truly do think that when it comes to evolve emotions, you're one of the very best artists in all of dA!

I think it's quite remarkable, because you're completely relying on abstract… So, how would you say these two fit together? Are you really trying to reach the viewer's subconscious directly?

: Now you almost made me cry with your praise!

Well, if we try to "visualize" feelings, emotions, associations, which to my mind very often have their root in the subconscious sphere, I believe that most people can't put a definate picture on these. However, seeing symbols, shapes, colours often evokes these. So, for me working with abstracts is also working with deeper feelings of the subconscious, and thus, unknowingly so, touching deep areas with my viewers - a reaction that always gladdens me immensely - as it is a sign for me that my work was not vain. And being an author as well, my titles are important in the wholeness, and often appears when I study my own works, before the final touches.

: Well actually, there are many people (mainly photographers) around here who think that titles have nothing to do with the final artwork at all… So, as you are working with photos yourself, just how important do YOU think titles are?

: Eternal question this, are we counting on only to pure deception... There's a huge difference, if you look at the photo titled as "untitled" or if it has a title that leads you to interpret the content. For me, when making my photos, titles are essential, as they both are part of me. I think the experience of seeing would have been very different, if I had named my Birth "untitled" - not that the image itself would have changed.

: So thank you for your honest and profound answer!

Now, of course it is really difficult to pick some absolute faves in a gallery as great as yours, but here are just some more examples of what I consider to be representative for this greatness…

Rainy bridge, lonely bridge by AiniTolonen

The Day The Sun Fell to Earth by AiniTolonen

Are there any stories behind them you'd like to share with our noble audience?

: Nice to see your choice of pictures

Would be interesting to know why you picked up just these!
Bridges have always had a special meaning for me... it's kind of a liminal space, leaving the old life, stepping into something that you yet don't know. The Day The Sun Fell Earth was inspired by Nagasaki, and Back to Ithaca is part of my Odysseus serie, the one that unfortunately isn't completed yet. The last one of these, Tales from a sunken ship, has it's roots in the sinking of Estonia in the Baltic Sea 1994 costing over 850 lives, the nightmarish accident in the stormy autumn sea, but it's also my author mind thinking of all these lost lives - who were they? What would be the stories of their lives if they could tell?

: Well, maybe I selected those because those spoke most directly to my subconscious again… Anyway, we're not talking about ME, we're talking about YOU!

So, what would YOU actually do if you knew the stories of their lives? Does DEATH always imply more inspiration, than, for example… life?

: Well, if I really knew the stories of all them, I would probably go crazy

But seriously, life and death are inseparable, and death is a great mystery that no-one alive has solved. What provokes my imagination is this that when one is killed accidentally and in a way "too early", the remaining question is, what would have happened to them if they had had a chance to live on their lives. Now, talking about these big issues of life and death, a sleep is considered the little death, and very many of my pictures are dealing with dreams, be they my personal ones or those rising from the collective unconscious.

: You are such a nice one to interview, Aini.

That's exactly what I would have asked you next!

Did you know? I'm sure you knew!

Anyway, as you already told me before, many of your inspirations also come from DREAMS... So, what's the special thing about DREAMS, how are they connected to DEATH, and do you have any specific examples in your gallery to show that?

: oh thank you!

I think most of us have experienced at some point of our life a fear of falling asleep, thinking "oh my god, what if I die during the night", that being perhaps sometimes a start for the insomnia. So it's the sleep that is connected to death, not dreams, as they we will remember when we wake up, at least in theory. In my gallery there is one example of this dream/death,

. I used to keep a dream diary long long time ago, writing down everything I remembered. One night I woke up to a dream where I was reading a book, the most wonderful text that was ever written, and I knew it was written by me, but damn, I didn't remember more than the first sentence! "The door was already open when they stepped into the dream." So, my Book of Dreams is about that: stepping into the dream, towards the unknown and unpredictable.

: Just WHY do you think sleep is always associated with death, but dreams, although they actually will never appear WITHOUT sleep, are not?

: When one is sleeping, one isn't aware of being asleep.What signifies a dream is that we are able to tell about it afterwards. No one knows if the soul – awareness – of a being's travel through death consists of dreams. So in that sense dreams are something connected with life as we know it.

: Does this include DAYDREAMS as well?

: Wouldn't call daydreams as dreams...

But daydreams are essential, aren't they?

: Do share some of your daydreams with us too, please!

: They are often very banal compared to dreams, so I will save you all from that... But if you tell me your dream, I might make a picture out of that

: Well actually, we're not talking about me, we're talking about YOU…
But however, your offer is just too tempting!

So, I just send you a dream of mine that I hope to see visualized before the end of this interview!

But I do understand this might take some time...
In the meantime, well, if you don't have any deviations depicting your DAYDREAMS…
Why not share some more others of your personal favourites with us!

: My personal favourites? Ok... you already picked one of them, Rainy bridge, lonely bridge!

Here are some more:

She stepped into the light and was gone by AiniTolonen

Selfportrait As An Old Woman by AiniTolonen

They all have some very deep personal meaning for me. Of crossing the bridges I have already told. Penelope (still waiting) belongs to my Odysseus serie, the great epic story and myth that has fascinated me since my early childhood, when I read stories about it - and I'm still waiting to complete the serie some day! Though to picture fex. cyclops is a tough one

The third one, She stepped into the light and was gone, is about sorrow, but combined with the lightness, the ease... And the last one, Selfportrait as an old woman - well, we are not getting younger, aren't we?

And the very last picture I could add here, is Sound of silk (torn).

It took a long time to get ready, as it didn't want to reveal its secret. But finally it did: I got a poem out of it!

: Elaborate on POEM, please?

: Well, isn't it a poem, the picture? The moment of the tearing the silk, and the sound of it... and the story behind it that one has to see/feel? Poetry is to be felt, not always to be read.

: So tell me now, and tell me true. Most definitely, you got the most SEXY abstracts around here. Is this supposed to be so, or is it just my brain?

: You mean this picture?

: I mean ALL!

OF!

THEM!

Isn't it in the eyes of the beholder

I haven't considered myself as making erotic abstracts, but thanks, this is interesting.
I admit that this Sound of silk (torn) can easily be seen as erotic, also, though in my mind it has more to do with death also, and meditation... hmm, now we are in the deep seas, having talked about dreams, death and erotics. Maybe they are all connected? But in fact the title is freely borrowed from a great Finnish poet, Eeva-Liisa Manner, a modernist that was also fascinated of ancient myths, Asian cultures and such.

: It is also erotic that you already answered and took away my next question!

So, please elaborate a bit more on HOW these three are connected, instead!

You may also include modernism, ancient myths, and asian cultures!

: Oh, am I supposed to give lecture here

: Good Ghoul, NO!

As long as you did not bring the wonderful work you did out of the dream I sent you here, I just want you to not feel bored!

: Bored, me? No way

...but in fact I have brought a small surprise to you, if you are ready. Are you?

: Bring it on, Aini!

Let it be an EXPERIENCE!

How to find The Exit

: Damn, I had a strange feeling about this one since I saw it for the first time!

I just never dared to HOPE!

I LOVE it, Aini!

So now, just before we close this wonderful interview… Tell our noble audience a bit more about the thought process that led you from your source to this!

: How nice you love it

When I first read your very powerful, epic dream, I got stuck in the scene where you enter to this end of the world, the elevator and the room with neon lights, trying to find the way out, somewhere. Your dream was full of very interesting scenes, but I chose this one, as everyone of us can relate to this being captured in a room without any possibility to get out... and also because I remembered immediately, that I had took some experimental photos and not worked with them - and bang, I could feel the fear and claustrophobia in this green picture and knew, that THIS IS IT. So, as always, my working process was very intuitive.
S0, I'm very happy that you could relate to it

: Actually, you couldn't have got it any better. I am always in for intuition!

So right now, meant as an INTUITIVE decision, I think there will be no better point to end this wonderful interview than this one!

IF you do not have any other words left for our humble audience, that is.

: Thank you, I enjoyed being here.

And to you all: trust your dreams, trust your intuition!