Central themes of my artistic practice include memory, history, self-reflection, and the search for identity. Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder just few years ago, now I feel a profound need to reveal and express my true self through a new, non-verbal language of art. Each piece I create, explores themes of self-awareness, self-discovery, and the interaction between my inner world and the external environment. This is why the image of a window is one of the central in my works. For me, however, a window is not just a border between the private and public spheres. I use the window as a metaphor for a movable boundary between the past and the present.
In my later life, there were significant and abrupt changes in the external world, including a global pandemic and a new war in Europe, which drastically and profoundly altered my worldview and forced to rethink and reconstruct my life experience, and to build a new relationship with the past. In my works I make references to the classic paintings from European, Russian, or Finnish art, putting their details outside the window. For me, paintings created many years or centuries ago, can provide us with profound insight into a wide range of subjects, helping us to understand the present and the people who live in it, revealing timeless truths about human nature, society, and culture.
Besides the internal-external dichotomy linked to my autistic traits, my work also explores the dual identity of a migrant with 15 years experience abroad. In each work, one can find elements of the two cultures to which I belong. Art practices help me understand and demonstrate how this complex migrant identity is constructed and formed within me. The merging of cultures in my works occurs in a dialogue of homages, and this method repeats from painting to painting and in different series, forming my unique artistic style.
My art practices blend social observation with whimsical, sometimes satirical, sketches influenced by caricature and naïve art traditions. Through the dialogue between the introverted inner and external worlds, past and present, and between the two cultures I belong to, I am able to reflect on both personal and collective experience.
