A few weeks ago, there was a big fuss about the artwork painted by Katariina Souri.
Katariina Souri is an artist and former model from Sipo. Jenni Gästgivar / Iltalehti
Artist Katariina Souri says on her public Facebook account that she is depressed for the first time in her life because of the recent commotion.
Sourin painted a collection of 19 oil paintings for the Lux Helsinki light art event. The whole included a painting that the chairman of the Sami youth in Finland Petra Laiti strongly criticized the painting depicting a Sámi woman and a reindeer in her Instagram video, and considered it old-fashioned and stereotypical. The uproar later spread more widely.
Lux Helsinki finally decided to present the work with attention to content.
Opens on Facebook
It’s been a few weeks since the birth. Souri says in his disconsolate update that it left its mark on him.
– When I was younger, in the midst of adversity, I was always able to pop up quickly as a “rubber duck” back to the surface, thanks in part to my impulsiveness, my fury, my willpower and my dopamine-boosted energy.
– Now, at the age of 55, I am more stable and thoughtful, and my impulsiveness has evened out. I can’t run away from my feelings anymore, and a dashing warrior attitude won’t save me from everything anymore, but now I have to throw the gloves on the counter and admit that I’m bottomlessly unhappy and tired. The anger that I sometimes feel towards the injustice of society and the malice and distorted use of power by individual people has reached its legal point, and is turning into deep sadness and apathy in me, he writes.
The art project required a lot of work. Souri even financed the painting work of 19 works of art with a bank loan. The project itself took him to mental burnout due to the amount of work as well as the financial risk. The commotion on top of everything was too much for the mind.
– The storm of shit that the media and part of the culture crowd threw at me was shocking. The focus of it was no longer Sámi, but what a crappy artist I am. Totally inferior. Censorship and freedom of art as a human right protected as a central democratic value was completely a side issue, and the subject was not even discussed publicly, Souri explains his feelings.
Kohu made Souri think about moving out of Finland.
– Undoubtedly, the same shitstorm will continue at the beginning of the year when my work Lux is presented in Helsinki, if someone doesn’t come up with some way to prevent it. I myself develop escape fantasies. My long-term plan is to move at least partially out of Finland. I think I deserved it. I have deserved to be me, a man among men.
Read the full update below.