Essi Verlin (before Olkkonen, born in 1987) is a visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She studied visual arts in University of Oulu while completing her studies of Creative Arts Oriented Primary Teacher Education. – However, the spark for her creative work was lit long before her studies.
Other than paintings and drawings, Essi also designs gig posters and record covers.
Initially Essi’s work stemmed from the feeling that not all of the surrounding things and events had words to describe them. Still to this day painting and drawing have remained as a way to refine ideas and to help understand the surrounding and world within.
Paintings
From Essi’s paintings you can often find human figures and the discussion of relationships between humans and the energy in them, even scents.
Through the brush the events that took place, or things that never happened, start finding their form.
In the end one can always find themselves here, in this life and among people.
Drawings
Essi’s drawings are a step towards a more mundane world. She loves flowers, and that is the reason she paints them. Even though flowers can belong to the everyday life, they still bring up something hidden from it – emotions and scents of life.
In the midst of all the mentioned, the pencil often drives the though towards corporeality, which is the thought of origin for the human figures.
Does our posture tell us how we are truly feeling inside – this is something Essi often thinks while working on her art.
Thank you for finding your way to my work.