Tuomo Laakso: “Making images is a way to reveal my feelings to myself and to others.”

What is the most important thing you learned in art school?

Early in my studies at folk high school, my drawing teacher assigned us to draw Michelangelo’s plaster cast head of David. After a few hours, I thought I was done—but the teacher barely looked and simply said, “No—keep going.” So I did, until the end of that day, and then carried on the next, and the next. The class eventually ended, but I still didn’t want to stop drawing. What I learned was persistence: that by patiently probing your subject, you can discover new nuances and dimensions. It’s not that a painting is better the longer you work on it, but that turning every stone and exploring every possibility helps you fully realize your subject.

Where do you draw inspiration for painting?

I’m inspired by small details I encounter—unexpected color juxtapositions, light effects, a material or texture. I become so captivated that my blood rushes. In those moments, I don’t analyze why that particular detail moved me, because I fear it would disrupt my intuition and break the magic. Later—sometimes years later—I might reflect on the finished painting and realize that fleeting impression connected to another emotional moment in my history.

Which painter would you have liked to study with?

First to come to mind is the Russian landscape painter Isaac Levitan (1860–1900). How is it possible that arranging oily pigment so simply on canvas evokes such intense and immediate empathy, even though people rarely appear in his scenes? I’ve heard melancholy described as “beautiful sadness,” and indeed, it’s precisely that melancholy in Levitan’s works that speaks to me most.

Why do you paint?

I’m not an “orator” and I’m not at my strongest face-to-face with others. Creating images is a way of opening my feelings—to myself and to others. Transforming an experience into an artwork gives it visibility and weight. For me, making art is a social act—a slow, considered dialogue with the world around me, though often on a subconscious level. Showing a work to others is like sharing something very personal. It’s a thrilling and sometimes unsettling experience—but also liberating and therefore essential.

Tuomo Laakso

• Visual artist, MFA
• Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts, 2003–2007
  Academy of Fine Arts, 2018–2019
  Liminka Folk High School, Art Course, 2002–2003
  Repin Institute (St. Petersburg), Kotka unit, 2007–2008
• Born 1980, Helsinki
• Based in Helsinki
• Teaches evening observational drawing at the Free Art School and is a visiting lecturer in the painter training programme