Imitating Elina Brotherus

Our assignment was to imitate a photograph; first analyze it, then reproduce it. This is my imitation of Elina Brotherus’ photo called “I Hate Sex”. Took me three photoshoots to get it this close…

Elina Brotherus

Lately I’ve been looking at Elina Brotherus’ work. I knew of her of course even before my photographic studies; she is one of the famous young Finnish photographers much lauded in the arts world now. I had not really looked at her work properly before, though.

This is called This is the first day. What it reminds me of is the small apartment I had in Kallio after I left my first fiance. I only took with me my mattress, which was on the floor, and my books. The place looks so similar I had to do a double take when I saw this photo. But maybe it’s also the mood. I don’t remember my first day in my apartment, but the mood of my first year there was .. well, what you see there.

I find Brotherus’ background interesting. She was a student of chemistry when she got started with photography and later finished her scientific studies and got an arts degree. I feel a kinship; I also come from a theoritical, even technical background, and have had to change my thinking and my way of observing after moving into the arts. Brotherus says,

“When I began studying photographic art in 1995, I was still in the middle of my university science studies. I was strongly resistant to investigating my own emotional life. When I finally finished my master’s dissertation in chemistry, I guess I was able to give up the scientific-analytical thinking required by that type of work and to concentrate on intuition and looking. This brought about a tremendous burst of creativity in me, especially since I suddenly had some free time, and it is that period that the first works that ended up in exhibitions come from. A lot of old issues came to the surface and I began digging into my own head, my own history.”

I‘ve also experienced what she is writing about – the strong resistance to investigating my own emotional life, and the need to stay detached – and have only lately gotten the feeling that I’ve moved forward from those standpoints and towards an ability to bring omething from inside myself into my work.

Brotherus’ series Suites francaises also reminds me of my early times in Holland. A new country, a new life, and a new language I do not understand. Her photographs show yellow post-it notes with French words tacked to everyday objects and herself somewhere in the picture, with a note or not..