Paintings Are True, But

“Paintings are true, but not true to life. I have not just decided to build interiors out of this rather messy, chaotic world and fill them full of beautiful objects and, maybe, lots of flowers. The spaces and moods in my paintings have been influenced by the environment in which I grew up and the kind of places I feel to be important. Since the spaces in my paintings are collages of metaphorical and psychological elements, they usually don’t reflect just one place or experience. I think you can see sorrow, melancholy and fear in my works, but also happiness and enjoyment. It’s a way of looking at the world from your own point of view, things are often complex and the same space contains different truths.”

Karoliina Hellberg talks to Saara Karhunen about her work and the much-analyzed interior spaces in them in the Didrichsen exhibition publication available at the museum.