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never lose your sense of wonder
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behind the dreams
in between the shadows
in the missed heartbeats,
in the memory
I have forgotten,
in the hope that won’t forget me
and in the small moments
I hold my breath
in between each intake of air -
in these passing moments,
these unending moments
I suddenly am made aware
of an another world
behind a paper-thin barrier.
something brushes against me
as I pass by my thoughts;
something just out of reach of my words,
a dream that vanishes
as soon as I open my eyes
and I’m left with a piercing feeling of loss,
an irresistible longing to find it again.
there is something you recognize
even if it’s unfamiliar to you;
something as weighty as coming home
as excruciating as falling in love
as real as
this murmur of blood under my skin,
more real than
this life in me.
no longer can I not know
that this here, around me
is not all there is.
and so
I’m lost between two worlds -
lost
and yet found,
lost
and yet have arrived home
my breath
the shape
of prayer.
// kaisa vanhala
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I’m irresistibly drawn to the belief that the world has endless beauty hidden in it, just waiting to be discovered. I don’t mean beauty just in the aesthetic sense (even if that too is very important); I believe that the most weighty beauty is hidden in small moments you might not even recognize first. The small moments that leave you wondering why you suddenly feel like a window would have opened up in your chest, above your heart.
Most beautiful things are those that change us. That shake us awake from our slumber. Most beautiful things are those that take place between people, strengthening the truth in us. It is most beautiful to become visible, to become seen. To step forward, to accidentally find your voice. Or when in the midst of your sorrow you suddenly realise someone is sitting beside you, just being there with you. Or when in the midst of your fears someone takes your hand, refusing to let it go.
Most beautiful moments are the ones that are hidden in the twilight, in the restlessness, in the mess of life and that you recognise maybe only afterwards; bright cores of light in the dark.
It is most beautiful when someone is not alone anymore.
When someone doesn’t have to fear anymore.
It is most beautiful
to finally arrive home.
For me personally, the most beautiful thought and belief is that this often dark, messy and scary reality around us is not all there is. Behind a paper-thin barrier there’s something that is endlessly more real, more kind, more loving - and occasionally the boundary between this world and the world I hope for breaks open for a moment, light flooding in trough it.
Fairy tales have always meant a lot to me. They remind me of how hope is possible. That it is possible to stumble into a new world through a wardrobe, fall into a rabbit hole, get lost in wonders. Fairy tales keep the longing for beauty alive in me, the longing for wonder. They nourish that child-like mind in me, where nothing is what it seems and everything is possible; the sense of wonder I don’t think we can really live without.
For me, all this is a spiritual reality, somehow… boisterously excited longing and homesickness, a longing for a different reality, close to my Creator. An impatient expectation - the restlessness of a child just before the summer holiday. That reality is not a fairy tale to me, but fairy tales remind me of it. The little Lucy in me stays alive, the one who still feels like she should go knock on the back wall of every old wardrobe she comes across.
It’s true that fairy tales are not just about wonder and happiness. I’ve come to think that is their most significant part. A fairy tale would not be a fairy tale if it didn’t include danger, or insurmountable challenges. Sometimes fairy tales are tragic, sometimes a sorrow is wound into them. When I was painting this collection, I kept wondering what actually defines a fairy tale - and I like to think that a real fairy tale always shows it’s main characters what is the truth about them. It forces them to grow, to rise up to challenges in spite of their fears, to stretch past their known boundaries into something new. And the good fairy tales, they always have a happy ending, somewhere behind the pain - where the characters realise they have become something they weren’t before. They have learned the shape of their hearts, the limits of their fears, the limitlessness of their courage, the importance of trusting others… the necessity of hope.
And in that sense, I believe fairy tales are very real - for our lives are full of challenges like this, and full of wonder like this.
I wanted to paint a collection that would speak of all of this; paintings that’d show the landscape of fairy tales, remind me of the sense of wonder of a fairy tale… That’d FEEL like a fairy tale, like losing yourself in the story and in the wonder.
That would feel like the sense of hope.
What I hope for is that these paintings could be reminders of wonder in their new homes; invitations to believe in the impossible again, whispers of wonder in the everyday.
If you’d like to ask anything about a certain painting, contact me - let’s chat…!
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The colours of the photos are adjusted to be as close to real life as possible. Different displays may however show them slightly differently.