Sampsa Indrén – Artist Statement

At the core of my practice is observation-based drawing and painting. My oeuvre encompasses large-scale, realistic oil paintings, expressive charcoal, chalk and mixed-media drawings, watercolours, and linocuts. My artworks are represented in the Finnish State Art Collection as well as numerous private collections both nationally and internationally.

I perceive the world in images. I process reality largely as a stream of images swirling through me as perceptions – some register with sharp, vivid detail, others as a formless mass. This ever-shifting kaleidoscope of consciousness logs events and atmospheres through various internal filters. These are influenced by myriad

factors: alertness, mood, desire, light, heart rate, and even the salty taste lingering on the tongue. When beginning a piece, I usually have a concrete model or subject to lean on and reshape. However, during the creative process, the work often becomes abstracted the further I allow it to carry me. While a realistically precise work is easily appreciated for its sheer craftsmanship, for an image in my mind to truly crystallise into a work of art, it must contain something unsettling and elusive – much like life itself.

In my art, disruption and unpredictability are deeply intertwined with the ultimate finitude of existence. I collect animal carcasses from roadsides, forests, and outer islets, occasionally sketching my findings directly on-site. To me, death as an impetus is profoundly delicate and fascinating, as it is a destiny that touches everything organic. I strive to approach it joyfully, celebrating the nourishing aspect of mortality: death is the boundary and outline that draws life into visibility, the shadow that gives birth to form. Without an awareness of limitation, there is no passion, love, loss, or grief. Death is an ambassador of equality that erodes hierarchies and transforms all living matter into a fertile primordial soup, from which new, small beginnings of the end grow once more.

When life is such an endless process of letting go, it is of paramount importance to recognise those gold nuggets we do not want to let slip through our fingers. My work serves to remind the audience to hold fast to discovered love and intimacy with all one’s might. My interest does not lie in the polished or enhanced human figure familiar from social media feeds; instead, I focus on the physical human presence – the raw matter (Latin: materia). The surfaces of my works appear raw, vulnerable and almost flayed; they react sensitively to everything they touch. They are susceptible to melancholy and aggression, the wistful pain of letting go and the joy of rebirth, desire and shame. Stripped of ego, the human body in my work is vulnerable and fleshly, with all its wrinkles, hollows, and scars. I view these marks – such as Caesarean scars or the flush of a sauna – as medals and as a person’s own growth rings. By juxtaposing these candid moments with early ecclesiastical art, Madonna iconography, or the themes of modernist masters, my works become bundles of pulsing longing: a dialogue of contrasts that elevates everyday vulnerability into the sacred.

I graduated with a Master of Arts from the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2012, and have practiced as a full-time professional visual artist ever since.

 

Abb oben.: Vögel, 2015, Linolschnitt und Tusche auf Papier, 37 x 26 cm

Sampsa Indrén
Visible Line, 2025, watercolour, 26 x 41 cm

Sampsa Indrén
The Artist‘s Wife, 2012
oil on canvas,, 160 x 140 cm