LAYERED LOGIC
Jaana Saario, University of Art and Design, jsaario(at)uiah.fi
Abstract
The purpose of my research is to open the conversation about the elements affecting around the visual process. Artist
herself chooses some elements into her works. Her choices are based on intellectual and emotional elements but also on
artistic aims. The other part of the elements forces itself into the works of art unnoticed, as an affect of environment or as
an accident. The interest, the horizon of the artist, environment, memory and all such is continually knitting the net, which
finally ends up to the works of art somehow. Diversity of these elements is the most interesting part in my research.
In Art of Research exhibition there are three of my paintings. They are some results of the art process that I analyze in
this text. My art works are combined and sowed together from different materials, surfaces, visual and verbal elements,
prints, handicrafts and remembrances. These layers were tight bound together with the words that I wrote during the
process. After the process I started to figure out how the words, visual layers, final paintings and my thoughts were
limited and related to each other. After all I see The Layered Logic as a characteristic way of how the art piece develops from many various elements to a single but diversified piece.
I have approached this entity through textual discussion with artists and philosophers, who have been writing about the
issues that came out in my process from various sides; psychology, art history and art philosophy. I have been walking
around the art works trying to see from different ankles, running into various discussions. This way the whole interpretation of the process has been built from the visual layers themselves -towards philosophy and not on the contrary.
Some Background
My research is focused on the working process of artist. I will present different levels of practice and thinking in art process. This text will concentrate on a certain working process of mine and show some characteristic nature of an art process in general.
While working with a coming exhibition in 2005 I observed my thinking, associations and rhythm during
the process. The painting was fast. It took only 23 days to complete 13 pieces. All together the process
lasted more than half a year. Between the intensive painting days there were long periods, when I had to
stare the unready works, think them ready, develop and change angles.
During the process I wrote down separate words which represented my thoughts of the unready piece. I
wrote these words to myself, for means of self understanding. Between the words I started to see connections and relevances. Finally I arranged the words in small groups; poems, which in verbal form express
some stories of my visual thinking.
This individual process revealed some features which seem to be characteristic to art process in general. I
will compare my experiences to stories of various writers and through them bring forth the layered thinking
of art process.
I am interested in ready art pieces only as they are able to reveal the working process. Guided by them I try
to see parts of the process, how these realities (pieces) have been built and how they are presented. The
curator and critic Nicolas Bourriaud writes about art process. He sees the work of art ”…as a period of time
to be lived through, like an opening to unlimited discussions (Bourriaud 2002, 15).” During the certain
period, that artist lives with her piece, many kinds of thinking paths come about and open. On these paths
artist will test her ideas of the piece in process. I see this journey as any thinking process where all kinds of
discussions, changes and surprises are possible. This procedure where artist is able to find her own way in
the process I name layered logic.
About Interpretations
Managing art process with verbal language requires diverse interpretations. Artist often uncovers only the
elements, that she sees essential. The researcher will make her own interpretations of artist´ s stories and
again frame out some parts of the process. I try to decrease the layers of interpretation by observing my
own art process side by side other artist´s processes looking for levels where the voices of authors would
constitute equalities.
Knowledge can be visual even if we talk about it with words. Professor of Psychology of Art, Rudolf Arnheim, writes about the difficulties in verbal description of process and experiment. According to him verbal
expressions flatten the experience on one dimension and linear level. Verbal language can never reach all
the levels of experience. Knowledge is not only linguistic but also images share information. Interpretations
are formed in collaboration of images and words. (Arnheim 1969, 246 – 248.) By means of my poetical and
intimate words I felt I was getting closer to my visual thinking. Otherwise than Arnheim, I see the intuitive
thinking process as a network, not as a chain (Arnheim 1969, 234). As a network, thinking functions also
backwards reflecting the contents of memory. Side roads and vertical disturbances appear all the time in the
thinking process and new associations seduce thoughts to different directions. The words that I wrote during my art process are crystallized pieces of wider contexts. They function as some kind of landmarks,
which I can use to find essential points in the continuity of thinking.
Starting points
The basis of my art pieces are often in my own everyday life and experiences 1. In my previous works I
have focused on old photographs of my family, looking for my self portrait in them, turning mirrors to
myself2. I have freely combined the people and decades of old photos. On the side of family photos there
was still a pile of images of people, whom nobody could recognize anymore. The photos of unidentified
people brought up many questions. How is it to be known or unknown? What kind of role is to be forgotten? What kinds of people remain in memories and who will disappear? Whose face will be scratched out
from a class photo? These images with all the questions started to constitute basis on new paintings. They
became one of the important elements of my new process.
As another important element of the process became empty forms. I got an opportunity to visit archive of
my home commune and watch old, well classified card files. All the little details and big turning point of
human life were marked in thousands of forms, cards and files. In my mind an empty form started to symbolize a total unidentification of human being. Forgetting a person became concrete in empty columns of
the forms. The questions of the photos got united with the questions of archive.
I sewed and clued the painting bases of textiles that I bought from flea market. Sewed textile collage is an
active base. I didn´t want to leave the references of it to the background. So I lifted it as important element
as the photos and archive forms. The flea market table clothes and kitchen towels offered a new possibility
and new associations on the bases of my works. Thoughts of growing out of ones clothes, getting dirty,
fragile and abandoned –and finally death- came along the textiles in the process. The more there were
seams, abrasions, holes and dirt the more they presented their own history.
Finally the exhibition was named Apertures. They seemed to be a comprehensive theme as I saw them
everywhere. In all of my important elements of the process there were apertures and incompleteness. They
appeared in memory, in personal data and life stories of unidentified people, in archives and history. Unknown people as accepting apertures gave me a possibility to fill their photos with new connections and
meanings. At the same time they were leaking holes of my (imaginary) family story.
The Nature of Incompleteness
Philosopher Roman Ingarden write about incompleteness of an art piece. He considers the art works way of
being, how does it differ from other objects way of being. In Das literarische Kunstwerk he claims, that
incompleteness is an essential character of an art piece 3. (Ingarden, 1931.) The art piece has an extraordinary feature of being more than its elements together. Even if you can see and perceive all of the visual
elements of it, you can not describe its whole entity. If the piece in itself is able to open and underline all of
its contents, it will not leave any space for interpretation. In this case there will be no apertures for the
receiver to fill. The experience of the receiver is so strongly entangled with an art piece, that it is impossible to analyze the piece and the experience separately. Self-explanatory and complete piece of art is not as
durable as incomplete piece, which is able to offer thoughts, questions and adventures in the receiver.
In my mind the thought of Ingarden started to spread all over. Maybe an incomplete mind would be more
receivable than a complete one. Maybe an incomplete humanity would be more honest than a complete idea
of humanity. Completeness started to seem too stuck, too filled, unmovable. Apertures and empty space
created essential blowholes in the paintings and apertures in life stories became an important theme. Finnish artist and researcher Maarit Mäkelä considers apertures essential in a process. She compares artist researcher to a spider knitting a net. There will always remain holes in the net as marks of the things which
1
My thinking related to experiences and the world are based on Edmund Husser´s concept Lebenswelt and
Martin Heidegger´s concept of in – der – Welt - sein.
2
Solo exhibitions Betonimekko in the tower of Salo Art Museum 2001, Kudelma in Studio of Lönnström
Art Museum 2003 and Harsittu aika in Salo Art Library 2004.
3
Ingarden focuses on literary sources. I apply his thinking to visual art pieces.
can not be coughed in verbal or visual network. In art and research apertures are unanalyzed areas, which
can not be presented with verbal means. At the same time they are the essential element to complete both of
the processes. (Mäkelä 1998, 5-6.)
I wanted to conserve the apertures in narrations of my art pieces. Between the photographes we easily create narrations, which lead us to easy interpretations and simple views. I tried to build my pieces in a way
they would not give possibilities to linear histories but keep their fragmented and confusing nature. In this
intention I framed out all the elements and combinations which seemed to be too narrative and epic.
Marks of Living and Exertion
I started to paint on tablecloths, towels and cloths some years ago when many elder members of my family
died. We had to empty, clean and share the matters of their homes. Memories and meanings condensed in
the tissues, that were weaved and embroidered on my great grandmothers and aunts self grown linen. I hold
them in my hands and could not throw them away. Curator Maaretta Jaukkuri claims that sensuous experiences are capable to bring up associations and experiences of the past and pull the art process backwards in
time. (Jaukkuri 2000, 16). I felt this transition very strong as I painted images of my relatives on the textiles
they had produced, used and washed themselves. Later I understood that the process was also a part of my
personal grief and opportunity to arrange my position to the dead relatives. Professor of History of Art
Marcia Pointon has researched the way in which significant objects –like hair and jewellery- are able to
carry memories. In one example Pointon tells about widow husband who saved a coil of hair of his wife as
a touching point to the past. The coil of hair became a transition between past and present, dead and living.
It connected two persons in a situation, where no other bond existed anymore. (Pointon 1999, 47 – 48.)
I wanted to join used tissues to make painting bases, so I wandered in flea markets looking for abandoned
textiles. I was surprised to find piles of embroidered, carefully ironed towels and tablecloths and small
bundles of handkerchiefs bind up with beautiful ribbons. The amount of people, who had among the textiles given up grannies morning coffee, family dinners, moments of joy and sadness, seemed to be enormous. I wanted to wrap all the textiles to buy them.
Artist Jaakko Niemelä tells about personal levels affecting on art process and about the problems of them in
the interview of curator Jari-Pekka Vanhala. Strong periods of every day life affect on art process by force.
Often the artist wants to keep them along to clarify some things for herself and maybe to transfer their
power in her pieces. Giving the personal level too much space easily creates simple interpretations, which
cover those contents that the artist is focusing on. Balancing between the private and common levels demands sharp intuition from the artist, especially in sentimental phases of life.(Vanhala 2004, 181-187.)
Transitions and Realities
By changing materials, points of view and time layers I felt like transferring myself from a reality to another. I moved a history on another and combined persons, who didn´t ever know each other, to the same picture. All the textiles, blank forms and photos created new moments that never really existed. By drawing
some images strictly I was able to underline important contents. I also used color to mark essential matters.
By turning images on the base I found a game, where right side up signified reality and the images up side
down remained as background, history, past memories, which happened somewhere else, some other time.
Among these layered transitions I lost the real history quite far.
Photos in my pieces present a share of truth, fragments of lost people. One photograph is only a sum of
coincidences, but still it is able to represent a person even after her death and carry memories. What kind of
a truth of a person does one photo suggest? What did the photographer see, what did the model see? I started to realize how many interpretations there were around this one person. Parallel realities of the same
person started to live their own lives.
Jaakko Niemelä returns in his childhood memories by means of scale of his art pieces. His tiny structures
greate massive worlds of shadow. Threatening realities reveal their naive characters and the dramas of
darkness turn into a play. Hope and hopeless get mixed when the scales of child and adult confront.
(Vanhala 2004, 185-190.) Constructed realities involve layers of time and memory in the pieces of Niemelä
and mine. The layers are built of elements which are interesting, familiar and natural for their creators.
Researcher of Psychology of Art and Literature Juhani Ihanus claims that art creates experimental truths
and expression which oppose images of reality. It touches the hope and fear, dreams and despair of mankind. According to him art is weaving connections between different visions of realities and assumed
worlds (Ihanus, 1995, 208). No reality is the truth and no interpretation is final. In black there is always
white and in white there´s always dirt. Truth will remain as gray as the gray with thousands of nuances can
be.
Photograph and Memory
Roland Barthes writes about the relation between photograph and the person in it. Photograph4 refers to the
person, to his character and history. Barthes describes how a real present body by means of light transfers
to a photograph, which in the form of light again will touch a receiver in another place and time. This touch
is as real and physical as the light would be skin between the person in photograph and the receiver.
(Barthes 1985, 12, 86, 87). Elizabeth Edwards has been researching the relations between photograph,
anthropology and history. She claims that photograph has been the strongest and most emphatic instrument
of memory since 19th hundred century. Photo is physically present and it touches the receiver in many
ways. Photos are special objects as they are kept in medaljongs near ones skin, in heavy albums and beautiful frames. Photograph of a dead person becomes a fetish when its kept as a conserved memory. (Edwards,
1999, 221, 226-230).
I use old photos to remember, to keep contact to the past. Many moments of my childhood are alive in my
memory because of the photos. Past and present get mixed in pictures. Does my memory function correct?
Or does it frame and modify the past according to photos? Artist Douglas Gordon (1998, 42) defines
memory as an incomprehensible and complex machine which has amazing ability to remember but at the
same time unexpected ability to distort. In the case of art pieces these abilities create an interesting conflict.
Old portraits of unknown people bring the past time closer even if there is no connection between receiver
and photographed person.
According to Barthes photograph functions as an illogical bond between here and now and there and then 5.
By the photograph we get aware of new relation between time and place. Given meanings in present time
are challenged as the past penetrates to the present. (Barthes 2004, 40.)
Any photo is able to raise private memories of receiver if the photo is intimate in a common sense. In a
painting detailed hands of an old person remind me wrinkled hands of my grandparents as I have familiar
contact on them. Memory brings up elements of experienced past continuously comparing it to the present.
Presence of Body
I have a special connection to cloths as I have produced my own clothes as long as I´ve been able to sew.
Cloths compensate human skin to me. This is why detaching parts of clothing has a physical nature. Different tissues carry their own meanings. Worn-out sheet and gauze are extremely sensitive and in many ways
healing materials.
Many artists apply used textiles in their work. I have been especially touched by the way Columbian sculptor Doris Salcedo uses old clothes. She has attached clothes from victims of Columbian war to her silently
critical works of art. According to Salcedo cloths are impregnated with person`s presence and they carry
the memory of her. Every remaining object is a first-hand evidence of her absence. (Basualdo, Huyssen,
Princenthal 2000, 14-18.)
Physical elements are strongly involved in Niemelä´s art as he is interested in metaphors of houses and
building, deblocking and breaking. Breaking disfunctional and useless structures can be a positive act.
Large ruin in itself is a reminder of physical human activity but it can also be attached to metaphors of the
wall of crying, collapsing and rebuilding. (Vanhala 2004, 182-190.)
Philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty claims that physical experience is the basis and origin of all human
knowledge. He reminds that body is the unique and only way to exist in the world. (Merleau-Ponty 1962,
408, 430). Body communicates through senses. It is a part of the same world which it is reflecting on. One
can relate surrounding phenomena on it´s knowledge. (Värri 1990, 69-70). Presence of body marks the
used clothes and sheets with impressions. Different kinds of shirts are used in different situations and worn
with different attitudes. In my pieces the spirit of photographed people changes according to their background textiles.
4
According to Barthes no other visual form carries as strong references as the photograph. Painting can
look like reality, but it doesn´t have straight connection to the moment of taking picture. (Barthes 1985, 82,
83). Representing the character of photo is essential in my paintings. The aim is rather to refer to the photographes as objects and to the time of them, not to the photographed situations and individuals.
5
Barthes obviously talks about original, not treated photograph, which also the photos of my paintings are
like.
Relevance of Instrument
Pencil as a material choice is a comeback to visual basics. It is the first tool for writing and drawing. It
represents school, exercise and humbleness. In the archive I cladly noticed that decades ago the archivist
had used pencil to make corrections on tax papers and comments on parenting data of children.
Niemelä tells frankly about his material choices. He chose the material of the wall according to its ability to
break in certain kind of pieces. For a tool Niemelä wanted familiar, heavy and masculine sledgehammer.
He also had to break backs and ankles of little dolls to vanish the strict bearing of the toys. (Vanhala 2004,
185-187.) Every material decision is directing the piece of art somehow. With my own decisions I have
tried to support the spirits of aged photos and textiles. The matt surface of tempera painting and the sensitivity of pencil promote the same feeling.
While painting I was balancing between red and white; active and passive, passionate and silent, filled and
empty. They created conflict and needed other colors to support them. I wanted to give a value to white, to
lift it up from the background. Still I avoided covering the original colors and patina on textiles. I struggled
between painting and not painting to organize all the elements and still leave the base open as much as
possible. Painting became like breathing in the rhythm of working and exclusion.
Coexistence of Words and Images
I didn´t want to combine anything personal to the images of unidentified people. In the archive I was looking for any files of anybody. I wanted to frame out all identities and intimate answers. The archive offered a
new angle to every day life. Diary of a school doctor was a pile of failure and damage. Data of debts told
precisely the financial situation of a family. The archive gave strange fragments of facts on the context of
forgotten people.
Combinations of texts and images started immediately to create narrations which I tried to mix by combining kinds of elements which wouldn´t create easy narrations and interpretations but rather raise more questions. Arnheim writes about polydimensional space, where two- and three-dimensional image together with
one-dimensional verbal language produce strong basis for thinking. (Arnheim 1969, 232). Thinking functions by means of narrations. I tried to stir them as I needed to reach the space of open, familiar and tempting questions; the space of a ready art piece.
Gordon wants his art to be an opportunity for the receiver to stop and think about her own thoughts for a
while. I also thought that fragmented stories would give space for the inner dialog of receiver. (Gordon
1998, 45.) The amount of fragments became crucial. While finishing a painting I was all the time balancing
between enough and too much.
Breathing
The space, where everything begins and ends, is empty and silent. Working period was like pronouncing
one sentence. It started with inhale and ended up to pause. In both ends of the process I cleaned the studio
to give space for something new. At the same time I arranged my thoughts to receive and give up.
Producing art is always periodic act for me. Painting needs more concentrating than writing and it feels to
be more intense than verbal activity. The pleasure I get from painting is deeper and complete. Between the
periods of painting there is time when visual elements just wander in my thoughts. My mind works with
images quite all the time, and I miss painting. Pieces of art are not created in a studio, they only realize in
there. Art develop and born somewhere between every day life and work, between final cleaning and inhale.
Layers of the Process
Artist entangles to the world as any human being. Body is bound to space and time and its own history.
Artist -like any person- can not get loose from the world as there is no life without being in the world.
Through artist´s values and experiences art process is entangled to the world in complex ways. (MerleauPonty 1962, 405-406, 454-455). Piece of art is a result of choices created in complex layers of time. It is
found in the network of thinking which is continuously fed by visual and intellectual stimulus of the world.
According to Bourriaud one of the virtual properties of the image is its power of linkage as they produce
empathy and sharing, and all generate bond (Bourriaud 2002, 15).
Bourriaud sees artistic practise from the base on relations between consciousness. “Each particular artwork
is a proposal to live in a shared world, and the work of every artist is a bundle of relations with the world,
giving rise to other relations, and so on…(Bourriaud 2002, 22)”. When starting to work with a conscious
art process artist will focus on some elements of her thinking and at the same time avoid others. Bourriaud
agrees with Thierry de Duve when defining choices of artist. ”…work is nothing other than a sum of
judgements, both historical and aesthetic, stated by the artist in the act of its production” (Bourriaud 2002,
22). During the process artist set limits to fundamentals and angles of her piece. At the same time she will
focus her thinking to certain direction. Even if her thoughts during the process are involved with complex
levels of memory, visual and intellectual references, there is a certain layered logic in the construction of
every piece. This logic is formed by values, experiences, interests and focus of the artist as well as the
practical, material and technical matters. The choices are mainly maid as a part of everyday thinking but
also in unconscious levels. Opening the process will reveal possibilities to artist´s self understanding as
well as to research common levels of the characters of art process.
References
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