Virukeskus
Foodhall
When do you feel your most beautiful?
I feel beautiful when I feel whole. Health, relations with kids, painting, sunshine, inspiring people round you, nature… This state consists of many nuances. It is the feeling when you ride a bike and feel that you want to raise your hands and close your eyes and that is when you feel beautiful.
What does well-being mean to you?
Well-being is peace of mind, but taking joy in life is also important. I want to live to the full, to have my body and soul in balance. I want to create, surprise others with my creations, to share, to give. I am sometimes an ultra-emotional and impulsive person, but when I try to keep myself from emotions sort of by force, then nothing good will come from that either. As an artist you must always involve emotion to find inspiration and enthusiasm to work. That is how I operate to be able to give energy to others and keep a bit for myself as well.
How do you take care of yourself?
I don’t have any such traditional habits of taking care of my health. I eat five times a day, sometimes even pasta at midnight with my sons. I don’t have any strict exercise routine either and generally I am not very disciplined in everything to do about health and body.
I have always had such a mindset that beauty lies in a good mood, smile and shining eyes. When I see a really beautiful person on the street then the looks are of little interest to me. My eye goes deeper inside at once, to find out if there is something exciting to discover. My source of health is always art – it soothes my soul and organises my mind, nurtures me and smooths my wrinkles.
I am not afraid of wrinkles, because I have been making creative trips to Africa for more than ten years and I haven’t been painting with sunglasses. I felt that the world cannot touch me when I am wearing glasses. I always painted by squinting against the sun, because I have been fascinated by ‘contre-jour’ painting. Now I know that a cool memory of some trip is behind every wrinkle. These wrinkles are memories and experiences and it is all part of life.
What are themes that inspire you as an artist?It is difficult to answer this question, because every time period has its own focus points. Sometimes the theme isn’t so important, but instead it is that you naturally get the urge to create. I don’t force myself to paint, but want to get impulses from life that make me see and act. For me those moments are also important when I am not in front of the canvas, but the world in front of my eyes turns into a magical world, and I start to paint myself with my eyes and solve puzzles in my visions. The themes can vary, but the desire to create should not disappear.
