I have considered painting my main task in life since about 20 years, although I have always enjoyed having many tasks to do; some activity in the Finnish art scene (right now through kunsthalle Kohta, which I have started in 2017 with some colleges), picture book manuscripts, drawing maps or curating art on electricity distribution boxes in Helsinki, where I live.

Before I changed my studies to become an artist, I studied journalism and worked in that field for a few years – I have always seen art as a form of communication. A communication that cannot always be translated into words, especially not the reason behind it. A kind of poetic communication that is endangered in a society that honours rationality and effectiveness. A bit paradoxically, I enjoy words and writing, but I end up doing pictures because there are not always words.

My painting motifs have varied through the years, with a kind of oppositeness in common; like light/shadow, heimlich/unheimlich, beautiful/disgusting. There are two sides of everything – this is something very essential for me, for some wordless reasons.

Magdalena Åberg