Juha Nenonen

Motifs

I approach my motifs via three classical picture types - the landscape, the portrait and the still life. In many of my works these different types of picture are also mixed together. Thus, in the "Motifs" series, no immediately accessible, obvious thematic or visual connection between the different works emerge. Two concurrent themes underpin the motifs: the first deals with people's urge to categorise, to classify, to control, to order and organise, and looks at its subjects from this viewpoint. Another, different world is mirrored in this one, a world that evokes themes that are out of control, themes of vanity and the passage of time. This involves a dialogue between two, if not quite opposite, then at least different points of view.

I am fascinated by the illusion of reality generated by a photograph. My photographs are generally precise and sharp. My intention here has been not only to stress the realistic and illusory nature of photography, but also to achieve a kind of "democratic picture-area"- so that no point or object in the picture explicitly stands out more clearly than the others, and so that it does not come across as more important than the others - as though it were the main subject of the picture.

I have always been interested in mixing fact and fiction in photographs. Most of my works are staged, but they are shot in unstaged - existing - spaces and landscapes. Even when I have not staged them, my pictures convey a sense of staging and arrangedness, a theatrical artificiality.

Juha Nenonen