Tiina Lilja
Location
Ilfracombe, United Kingdom
Preferred artistic medium
Collage, Contemporary, Drawing, Illustration, Painting, Printmaking, Textile & Fibre Art
Art level career
Emerging
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Artist statement
As a painter, a large part of my working day is spent in the studio. When I sketch a likeness my brushes are heavy with history: The need to affirm the relevance of my medium has contradictorily steered me in choosing subjects that are mundane, ordinary and unassuming when encountered in their natural habitat of a department store or your home. In that sense, I see myself more of a curator or an archivist of everyday than a painter.
Although I am best known for my large scale portraits of iconic brands and treasured objects, I currently work combining found imagery, i.e. photographs or prints with drawing and embroidery, with an aim to study the themes of identity and representation. My tendency to collect (or hoard) antique photographs, posters and other quirky things has lead me to develop a style of painting that reflects my passion for old fashioned curiosities, iconic brands and graphic patterns. This love of ornamentation and traditional crafts has been at the core of my studio practice since I began to paint, but it has also inspired me to keep refining my technique and to acquire new skills in the wider field of art, illustration and design.
The craft of painting, from building and priming my own canvasses to creating art and selecting pieces to be exhibited forms the skeleton of my practice. The rest is filled in by meticulous sketching, art theory and curiosity to explore the visual world around me.