The Land of the Ever-Happy

Where would you travel if you could go anywhere? The curious would want to visit everywhere. Yet, so much always remains unseen. Good places can also be invented. It’s easy to go to places you’ve imagined yourself. That’s why I’ve painted imagined landscapes, islands, mountains, flowers, stones, stumps, pine trees, towers, strange creatures, and my imaginary friends. I think all the inhabitants of my imaginary world are ever-happy. Childish? That’s how it is. By painting, I can have all the adventures I missed out on as a child. Of course, in a world of imagination, you only see what has happened to accumulate in your own mind, but even knowing that is valuable to a person.

I paint because I enjoy it. I paint because I’ve found a path to a world unknown to others. Painting is play that fulfills all my wishes and calms my mind. I paint because a person is a child until their death. I know that bogeymen don’t disappear, nor do trolls die, but if you keep them busy with play, they cause less trouble. Imagination’s bogeymen that have escaped into the real world and taken on new names are the reason for the world’s problems. Each of us has to wrestle with them daily.

If I have any motive for painting in relation to other people, it’s that a painting can sometimes serve as inspiration for others, whatever their activities may be.

The exhibition features watercolors painted on handmade paper, where one wanders in an unknown land and does something whose purpose is entirely unknown.

– Markku Arantila

The exhibition has received a state grant from the Finnish Heritage Agency.