on my paintings and collage sculptures

Leonardo

On My Paintings and Collage SculpturesAuthor(s): Ahti LavonenSource: Leonardo, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Winter, 1971), pp. 63-65Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1572233 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 4, pp. 63-65. Pergamon Press 1971. Printed in Great Britain

ON MY PAINTINGS AND COLLAGE SCULPTURES* Ahti Lavonen**

Fig. 1. 'Collage Sculptures', two modules, polymethyl methacrylate covered aluminium sheet, 100 x 100 x 25 cm, 1968.

In the 1950's, I made paintings in various strong colours along the lines of impressionistic abstractions and also of colour fantasies. None of these satisfied me, so I started to reduce the range of colours until I ended up with the ascetic combina- tion of black and white. Black became for me in the early 1960's of prime importance. To me, black did not mean sorrow, misery, a withdrawal from the world-rather it symbolized life. I felt that it had the quality of quietness, of giving a sense of large time span. Since I did not feel that black alone was enough in a painting, I added mainly shades of rust brown and dark red to small areas along the borders of the black. People reacted strongly to these paintings.

Then I began to apply the collage technique to a

*This note was prepared with the help of of the artist- teacher Annikki Luukela living at 5 as. 29 Puistokaari, 20-Helsinki, Finland. (Received 7 July 1970.)

**Born 21 March 1928 at Kaskinen, Finland, died on 26 February 1970 at Helsinki. He played a leading role in the renewal of Finnish art, beginning in the late 1950's.

series of black paintings. One of these is made up only of gradations of black. They range from coal black to clear, gleaming shades to what might be called a 'white' black, for it reflects white light. The tension in the work arises from the varieties of black, their relations to the black background and to the different black textures of materials glued to the surface.

I was at this time listening to a lot of symphonic music, especially to works by Sibelius. Although he was in the classical tradition, I liked it. What especially impressed me was his use of passages of silence. I tried to adapt the world of his music to my paintings; not directly, of course, but to express the feelings the music aroused in me. My black paintings of this period have, I believe, a markedly 'musical' quality and reinforced my conviction that there is an affinity not only between painting and music but between all the arts.

The illusion of space that appeared in my black paintings differed from the illusion of it in my white paintings that followed. Their starting point was

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Ahti Lavonen

Fig. 2. 'White Sculpture', enameled, welded 4 mm thick cold-rolled steel sheet, 100 x 100 x 100 cm, 1966-1967.

emptiness. I imagined that a canvas was an empty chessboard and that I played a game by painting shapes on it. I was very surprised by the possibilities that were offered for making a composition in this way. Emptiness became a new adventure and I wanted to place in it something of significance. As a child of the north, I associated the white emptiness of a canvas with our snow-covered countryside. My thoughts were so wrapped up in this natural aspect that it was difficult for me to direct them toward the kind of abstractions I was searching for.

At first, I crammed the white surface with miniature forms drawn from nature, which helped me to grasp the world of structure, previously not evident to me. Walking out of doors I noticed that I was looking at what was near my feet. Distant views vanished and my idea of the world became highly subjective. I was seeing things as a small bird would when hopping around on the ground. Gradually I reached a kind of synthesis between dimensions and material characteristics.

I searched also for materials to use besides oil paint, such as glues and glues mixed with sand but the results were heavy and oppressive. I knew the kind of effect I wanted and continued my search. One day I found a porous stone on the sea shore. From it I made a powder which when mixed with plastic paint produced the clear, light surface I desired.

No matter how logically an artist plans one of his works, he realizes that chance plays an essential part. I find that I am more and more aware of this fact. I remember an example that chance clearly had on one of my paintings that was carefully planned and almost finished. I went out for a walk

in a forest and stumbled upon a workman's hut made of plates from crushed metal drums painted an intense brown colour. The brown did not interest me but a yellow streak from a brush someone had cleaned stood out very strongly and affected me so much that I returned immediately to my studio and finished my painting by adding to it a similar yellow streak.

This series of paintings ended in the autumn of 1962, when I went to Paris where life and the surroundings were so different from those I knew. I looked at many of the classics of modern art and works of my contemporaries working there. At the National Museum of Modern Art while studying a painting by Kupka, I was astounded by its lightness and by a kind of similarity it had with my white paintings. What especially struck me was the unified structure he had achieved through the use of very small elements. When I tried his approach I was astonished how readily it fitted into my white pictures, as though he had anticipated the next step I should take. I had, at this time, a longing for order and lightness, which Kupka had reached; however, he had cubistic overtones that I did not want.

I introduced, instead, small geometric patterns made up of points that covered a canvas from top to bottom. This went against my freedom-loving temperament but I forced myself to carry through this idea. I was surprised to find that a painting of this kind produced a calming optical effect. These 'point' paintings were at first basically white, then I put silver colour on the tips of the raised points and, finally, I used it to cover the whole surface. I studied extensively the effects of surface formations under the silver layer-structures of points and letters, very free structures etc. The central themes in these paintings were light reflection effects and

Fig. 3. 'Two Circles', painted on both sides of formed aluminium sheet and covered with polymethyl metha-

crylate, 45 x 42 x 12 cm, 1969.

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Notes: On My Paintings and Collage Sculptures

contemporary ideas about space. One of the silver paintings was in my collection at the 1962 Venice Biennial.

I gave much thought to Scandinavian culture. Our Finnish milieu is more bare and, quite frankly, more primitive than elsewhere in Europe. The force of our design lies in its asceticism. On my return from Paris, I began again a series of large black and white geometrical compositions related to the concepts of Mondrian, except that I limited myself to the use of squares. I could not resist a break with this austerity when fluorescent paints became available to me. I found they gave interesting results when used as under-painting for oil paints. Toward the end of the 1960's, I became increasingly interested in works in three dimensions. Reliefs had already appeared in my white paintings but now I started to work with free forms in space made of wood, plaster, bronze and aluminium. After some time, I arrived at what I call my 'collage sculptures'. I call them so because they are made of a combina- tion of two modern materials-aluminium covered with plastic material. I have, for example, made a number of basic elements of the same dimensions

consisting of a cylinder or pillar with a sheet background (cf. Fig. 1). These modules may be placed one on top of another or in a horizontally arranged group. They are coloured only in primary colours because I believe other colours would not be suitable on the highly reflecting surfaces.

I have also made sculptures with welded cold- rolled plate of 4 mm thickness. Welds are made from the inside, the seams polished and then painted with an automobile-type enamel that is baked in an oven. One of these sculptures consists of two separate forms that can be assembled in different ways (cf. Fig. 2).

Since I have essentially a painter's outlook, I decided to combine painting with sculptural forms. One of these objects, which consists of a painting-on a curved aluminium surface and covered with a sheet of polymethyl methacrylate, is shown in Figure 3. I have painted the opposite sides of the formed aluminium sheet for viewing from both sides when it projects from a wall or is suspen- ded from a ceiling. The various possibilities of painted sculptural forms are my principal interest at this moment.

REFERENCES

1. Lavonen, Exhibition catalogue (Paris: Galerie D. Riquelme, 1968). 2. Lavonen, Exhibition catalogue (Helsinki: Amos Anderson Art Museum, 1969).

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on my paintings and collage sculptures

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