Erik Nieminen is Finnish-Canadian artist born in 1985. He achieved a BFA from the University of Ottawa in 2007 and an MFA from Concordia University in Montreal in 2010. He has exhibited in both Europe and North America, including recent solo shows in London, Montreal, and New York City. Present in both private and corporate collections, he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant and recently became the 2018 Grand Prize Winner for the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series. Nieminen submitted his work to the 2nd Edition of the Boynes Emerging Artist Award, and while he did not place, his work was recognised.

What inspired you to start creating art?

There’s no specific thing that inspires me to create artworks – it’s mostly borne of a desire to deal with the flux and chaos of the world we inhabit; to find a quiet resolution to all that. It’s not necessary that this becomes a reflection of society, as we are sometimes apt to believe is the function of art. Rather, it’s to create a unique reality on the canvas that is in some way based on my experiences in the world but at the same time exists inherently on its own terms. On a personal level, my father is an artist and there have been a number of artists in my family stretching back generations, so you could say that I might be bred for this activity. I always saw it as a legitimate profession and valuable way to spend one’s life. I never seriously planned on doing anything else and have been drawing and painting since a very young age.

What inspires your work now?

At the moment I’m looking closely at artificial paradises found in urban space. These take the form of biodomes, biospheres, zoos, botanical gardens, etc. Sometimes it may be something much more subtle such as an arrangement of plants or bit of landscaping in the lobby of a building. These are spaces that are exciting both thematically and visually. Thematically they present a rich source of interpretations – from mythological histories to issues relating to climate change and urban sprawl. Visually they are very complex, a multi-layered presentation of elements coming into contact with each other. The contrast between circular organic forms and the relatively straight, minimalist lines of industrial or modernist architecture provides an incongruous confrontation, and it is then my job to find a way to solve the chaos that ensues from that. I’m not trying to replicate what I see however – my works do not always fall into a figurative bracket, as they just as often end up verging on pure abstraction. I follow a path that begins with very abstract sketches and along the way some of these abstract elements may be replaced by bits and pieces of figurative information that I gather (drawn from dozens of photos or videos) … or not. Sometime all that’s needed is pure form to provide enough possibilities for the viewer. Therefore, my work is almost always about being in a liminal state – the process enforces this, and the resulting painting is also staged with this in mind.

What mediums do you work in and experiment with?

I work predominantly in oil paint. A significant part of my process is spent drawing, though I rarely consider the drawings I make to be developed works. Accompanying this is photography and video-making. I take thousands of photographs each year, not as a photographer but just to gather information about something I find compelling. I don’t compose my photos, and in fact I’m sometimes glad when the information in the photo is interesting enough to use, but not necessarily clear enough to fully read or understand. It prevents me from falling into the fallacy of mimicry on the canvas. My videos are used in a similar fashion, as documents. I will shoot hours of videos and then go through them frame by frame picking out potentially useful moments. Recently I have begun making semi-abstract clay maquettes that are based on some of my finished paintings. They are inspired by some of the aesthetics of digital 3d modelling, but without actually being so. They are rough and physical. Their role however is to be used as sketches, fodder for future paintings. We will see where it all lands.

Are there any particular brands of art supplies you prefer using (if so why)?

I’m not brand-loyal. I’ll use anything that does the job well. With that in mind I try to avoid lower-grade materials, except for sketches and things of that sort. Being in Montreal, I am fond of the local Kama brand of oil paints and solvents. They are a relatively small company but they make high-quality materials for artists of all kinds. I find myself using a lot of Gamblin paint, but also Holbein and Windsor & Newton. As you can see, it depends.

Do you have any particular ways that you work through a creative block?

I don’t often have creative block. I have lots of ideas, some good some bad. It’s often hard to. know which is which at the outset, and it’s only by working through the process that the difference becomes clear. When I am following the path of a bad idea, it can sometimes partially feel like creative block. I don’t know how to take the idea in a useful direction, I am failing to see potential ways of developing the work. This can be frustrating but the best thing I can do is leave it aside and move on to something else. As it turns out, sometimes after having left a half-baked work aside for long enough I sometimes return to it, maybe a few years later, to find a grain of goodness in it that I can exploit to re-engage with the process. I always say that each work kicks open the door to the next. Each work is a series of problems to be resolved, and it is only through that process that I am able to know what I will be making in the future. That keeps the creative block at bay.

Can you give any piece of advice to your fellow artists on what you have learned while you practiced your craft?

On some level I think most artists experience fairly significant highs and lows. There are days when you feel that what you are doing is the work of near genius and other days when you wonder what the point of it all is. From my experience interacting with other artists, this seems to be the normal state of affairs. Therefore, it’s important to be disciplined about what you’re doing. If ultimately you believe in the work then it is paramount to trust in the process that brings you that work. Just keep making work. That leads into a potential problem however, which is stagnation. It’s very easy for an artist to become repetitious. There is a certain amount of comfort in making works that seems similar to each other, but it may also become redundant. I find the most interesting artists are those who push themselves into new areas on a regular basis. It’s good to (depending on the artist) every 3 years or so take a step back and see if it’s possible to approach your work from a totally different angle, from a different medium perhaps, or a process that’s less familiar. Stagnation is the enemy of the artist.

To view more of Erik Nieminen’s work

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