LOOKING

This painting is small, having been stretched on canvas, it seems to be leaving the wall into a noticeable thickness. As it was made from linen canvas, wood, staples and finally paint, it has the presence of an art work.(1) While its hanging on the wall in front of me, some of the threads from the canvas seem to be falling out from the behind of it, subtly following the straight sides of the painting onto the textured white wallpaper. I want to turn it around to have a look into the source of the escaped linen, but I will hold my patience for a little longer.

The gesso has been left thick on the side next to these fibers, creating a sort of edge, or perhaps a smooth line, one in which the white of the gesso seems to be subtly peaking through. The paint is slightly chipped, as small specs of white and raw linen peek out of the otherwise relatively uniform orange of the canvas. (2)

The bottom corner of the painting has been scratched onto something, with a little paint having been chipped, revealing the natural colour of the linen. This corner seems to be stapled neater than the rest, which makes me wonder whether this was one that the teacher helped to do. (3) It has three uniform folds that have been sloppily painted with the gesso, their centers bare and dark with shadow.

The grain of the linen seems to wave slightly on the lower edge, rippling from the U-shape that has formed in the middle of the canvas, perhaps from a pull that was much stronger than the ones surrounding it. Here, the lower layer of gesso has been embedded with small, thick fibers, ones most likely from a paint brush. The fibers have once again been encapsulated into the orange oil paint, as if preserved in amber. Holding onto the encapsulated fibers I find a long black and white hair that moves with my breath as I move my head closer to investigate. It's from my cat. (4)

The second bottom corner is much less neatly folded, its two folds escaping the square in a diagonal and slightly protruding manner. They're soft to the touch, I can almost push the tip of my finger in the middle of them and stretch them further apart. The middle of these folds is also sans paint, and released a tiny chip of the dried oil onto my finger nail while I played with it. The fabric was too small on this edge, and has not fully been stretched onto the backside, but rather curls upwards alongside the edge of the canvas. The lower end of this corner has seemingly two different colours, the one on the left hand side brighter than the one on the bottom, the bright one almost the colour of the mandarins next to me. (5)

The stretch of the linen is much neater here than on the corner folds, yet still wavier than on the bottom edge. Gesso from the top of the canvas has been left to flow over the edge to its side in thick, uniform overflows. Yet somehow next to these overflows there are little holes, intersections of the weave that have remained without the saturation of paint, now looking like little black dots freckling the side of the canvas.

As the lower end corner of the left hand side, the top corner also escapes the staples, protruding in a diagonal along the wall. (6) This ends in an unraveling weave of the linen, like an uncared for paintbrush that has hardened paint across its bristles. On the top, it seems like some dust has settled into the grain, some maybe having been painted into it while the painting was still wet. (7) Even though some of them appear to float on top of the paint, they are attached to the paint, and will not scratch off.

Now I have made my way around and I wonder whether to look onto the painted surface, to follow the cascading threads to the back of the canvas, or to discuss the shadow falling from the bottom of the painting onto the textured wallpaper it's placed on. The bright overhead lighting in my the studio casts an orange glow onto the wall, almost creating a halo on its perimeter. (8)

I want to look into the cause of this halo, the painted surface of this object. The grain of the linen canvas that the painting lays upon, is clearly visible, even through the thicker layers of paint. At first glance it seems straight, but it seems to lean a little towards the bottom left in soft and almost graceful movement. The fabric has some small knots in its grain, creating little blemishes on the otherwise smooth surface. They somehow do not seem distracting, but rather seem to give a rhythm to the slowly falling grain, as if musical notes on paper, or rather, little whispers in braille, that I find as I run my fingers on the surface.

On top of the character painted on this surface, I find a little hole in the canvas. (9) It’s almost unnoticeable, yet now that I have noticed it, I feel as if I cannot see anything else. I pull the painting from the wall and dissect it further. Light comes through this tiny hole, highlighting its darker, almost metallic edges as it falls into the canvas. The otherwise orange paint swifts into a raw umber, yellow ochre gradient from here, moving in a rounded shape on the centre of the canvas. The layers change from lighter and thinner to darker and thicker, layered on top of each other as they form the head of the dog-like character. The orange underpainting peeks through the lighter layers, and almost appears to line the edges of the character's facial features. Its eyes are faint and flat, but its nose and the middle of its eyes are painted on thick, much thicker than any of the rest of this painting. There is not really a mouth, rather a shadow cast under the lighter swipes of paint.

The body of the character is turning toward the back of the painting, and is painted with the same muted light browns, only holding one darker spot between its front legs. These dark shadows are few, but quite noticeable as the colour of them is repeated in the dark, sloppily written signature on the bottom right of the canvas, that you can barely make out the letters of. Its presence has clearly been of grave importance. (10)

I’ll now turn the canvas on its face, revealing the raw canvas and the loose threads that twist and turn like tree branches.

On the right hand side I’ve written my name, shakily on the wooden stretcher bar with a black, thin marker. The edge of the stretched canvas is rugged and raw, being pulled together by janky, almost detached staples. The fabric seems loose, but the dried paint on its sides keeps it formed to the angles of the wood. While the front of the painting seems neat, the backside reveals much more of its process, its uneven and somewhat half-hasperdy making. (11)




1 ( I would rather not discuss it as such however, but give my focus into the physicality of the object in itself. )

2 ( it has been moved somewhere)

3 ( maybe it is important that I do mention the maker of this painting)

4 ( i guess I am there)

5 ( I am here)

6 ( it is somewhere)

7 ( it has been somewhere)

8 ( we are somewhere)

9 ( This I think is where I must reveal that I am indeed the maker and the owner of this piece, as I suddenly have a vivid memory of me pushing the graphite of an automatic pencil through this canvas, some many many years ago)

10 ( its my name)

11 ( then again, here I find it difficult not to mention the memory of making it, the maybe 8-year old girl giving it her first try)

was painted in 2005 in Soukka, Espoo, Finland

I know

that it is 24x24cm
that it is painted with oil
that it is painted on canvas
that it is a painting
that it is orange


I remember

that Löttö was my favorite
that it was my first time stretching canvas
that it was my first oil painting
that we got to bring a toy to paint
that I was excited
that it was scary
that I fell in love with painting
that I wanted to be great at it
that I didn't want it to be orange
the smell of turpentine in glass jars
the feeling of dried pine soap in my fingers
the dirty water fleeing the brushes when washed



I don’t remember

what time of year it was
what the other kids did
how long this took
the kind of brushes we used
if I left Löttö there
if I took it home in between lessons
if I was happy with it in the end
if it was ever on a wall

Löttö

is written about in 2025 in Kruununhaka, Helsinki, Finland

encounter (present, October 2025)



1 ( I would rather not discuss it as such however, but give my focus into the physicality of the object in itself. )

2 ( it has been moved somewhere)

3 ( maybe it is important that I do mention the maker of this painting)

4 ( i guess I am there)

5 ( I am here)

6 ( it is somewhere)

7 ( it has been somewhere)

8 ( we are somewhere)

9 ( This I think is where I must reveal that I am indeed the maker and the owner of this piece, as I suddenly have a vivid memory of me pushing the graphite of an automatic pencil through this canvas, some many many years ago)

10 ( its my name)

11 ( then again, here I find it difficult not to mention the memory of making it, the maybe 8-year old girl giving it her first try)

LÖTTÖ