Aapo Pukk answers

 

1. Can you tell us some information about the subject and inspiration for your portrait?

 

I think that portrait painting is my passion.

 

But what really happens to me while painting a self-portrait?

I have always thought, felt and said that a self-portrait is not an everyday “gift”. Preparations for one self-portrait could take years. In my case a self-portrait has marked either the end of a certain period of artistic maturity or the beginning of a new one. Since childhood I have sketched and painted dozens of self-portraits. You can say that with a self-portrait you can lay down certain burdens that you cannot bear any longer. But if the picture of yourself is the beginning of a new period and you set out to use new technical methods, or express a new mature attitude towards life, then you sort of prepare the new and fresh wings for this new period.

It seems that the notion of and the need for self-portraits is devalued outside the art world. Unfortunately I have also met people who say about an realistic painting that it is beautiful as a photograph. And so I have even received a letter from someone seriously wanting me to paint his self-portrait!

I have also repeatedly been surprised by people, including adult art students, who ask me after seeing several of my self-portraits: “How do you do it? From a mirror? But then the buttons are wrong? And do you stand in front of the mirror the whole time that you are painting?” It really makes me think that the world is becoming alienated from us artists. Or that we live, hopefully only temporarily, on another planet.

 

We reach the point where we can state that a self-portrait often provides us with ample opportunity for self-analysis. Someone once told me that if you showed me your paintings, I could tell you who you were. Paraphrasing it, I could say that if you showed me your self-portrait, then I could say how sick or well, how poor or rich you were. A good self-portrait certainly contains the depicted person’s mental diagnosis.

An altogether new aspect could be added to this. Sometimes a self-portrait is like a twin of the artist on the other side of the screen. This other self in the mirror who supports us on our path of life and creative works.

This specific self-portrait, called “Myself” would  probably not have been born, had all my plans for the September 2007 gone well. My life did not go as planned or hoped… however. In the period preceding the painting of the self-portrait I was actually on the verge of getting a very profitable commission. It was a full length group portrait of five people. This subject was quite successfully introduced. My work was recommended to a wealthy man who let me start my preparations. Entering his prosperous house I did not see any reason to show him my price list. The whole thing seemed to work along the lines of “let’s not talk about money, let’s talk about work”. The family member of my client had come home from all over America. Twice I went to photograph them, working each time for three hours. Then I spent a week working with the photos. Even then I had no opportunity to talk about my prices because it was all so exciting, plus the potential client had a birthday. Then came the third meeting and I had to talk about price. Even though my price list is somewhat modest, he fell silent. He told me that he had many expenses, that he had to lease a new car soon and that there were other things as well. He said that he did not realize that the portrait would cost so much. In short, there was no commission.

I was downcast. I went home. I sat down in my studio, thinking: “Should I drown in the pool of deep depression of disappointment and self-accusation? At least for a week or two? Or…?” I got up, standing before the big mirror in the studio, and said to myself: “Now look at you! You are an artist! What is your duty? Breathe out and into the process of painting. Express yourself painting. Direct what you didn’t get into some new achievement. I should better study this disappointed me. I will describe myself, express myself and finally get over it. I will feel better than before. I should use my spare energy for creating the next self-portrait. By the way, all my previous self-portraits have somehow been associated with some shattering experiences.”

 

For a week or even more I painted every day. Every time, going back to the painting, I told myself to paint as honest as I possibly could. I did not allow myself to add anything that I did not see in real life. I started every session from the darkest point. I carefully watched everything that the sun did in my studio. I left untouched these areas in the painting where the sunlight, falling on the model started to speak differently. Every day I tried to capture exactly the same time in the movement of light. I was glad to discover that I was finding something that had remained our of my reach earlier. To my surprise the painting technique was enriched with new experience. When I tried to see through myself, I was shown what had been hidden behind the spiritual reality.

Finally this case taught me to show a potential customer my price list at the first meeting, and to start with asking for a deposit. This approach has kept me financially in a better situation than ever.

When the picture was finished and I had just received a message from Portrait Society that it had been chosen for the 2008 finals, then next morning I took it to be framed. Later I was told that a stranger had dropped in at the framer that day. He had admired the picture and asked its price. This “a man from a street” had analyzed my “Myself” picture, saying that it was a moody painting. That he himself did not know much about art but that he would have liked to understand the painting. He could not say whether the person in the painting was arriving or departing. He could not understand whether the picture was sad or just brooding. He understood that the portrait had a story to tell but he could not understand it. Anyway, he thought that the picture was significant. Finally he said that he liked the tonality of the portrait, the fact that the colors were not clear.

 

I listened to the gallery owner with the impression that the stranger might have been an angel.

 

A little bit more about the picture itself. The painting has three elements that are not reflections. First the vertical dark strip to the left – the open door of the studio. Second, in the upper part of the picture we can see the frame of a large mirror. And third, the right side of the painting is formed by the canvas of the picture being painted. The canvas being painted on the painted canvas is not as finished as the picture itself. By this means I hope to draw the viewer closer to the creative process.

Everything else that can be seen in the painting is reflection.

Now something about technical side. This picture has been painted on ordinary canvas bought in shop. The Fredrix company sells stretched canvases. I did not remove the thick layer of paint every day after painting. I let the picture stay as it was. Since I painted every day, each new session managed to soften the roughness of thick paint. I discovered in the course of painting that dynamic beginnings makes it possible to go into detail towards the end of the painting process without losing the idea of the picture as a whole. And of course, I found that my old idea proved to be right: don’t do what you want to do – do what you cannot leave undone.