Jonas Karén:
I have always loved science fiction (Hall 1)

In his exhibition I have always loved science fiction, Jonas Karén presents a
series of new paintings connected to his emotions. In the exhibition text, he
shares how, at the age of 25, as part of his therapy, he painted for the first
time.

The artist had trouble feeling any other feelings than anxiety, and the
therapist's theory for this was that he hadn’t learned as a child how different
feelings feel. So the therapist suggested various emotions that Karén then
painted with watercolors. He remembers that it felt difficult, like he was just
faking his feelings. For example, when painting the feeling of anger, he used
a lot of black, and he thought he was doing it just because that was what he
was expected to do. He also felt pretentious; there was something about
holding a paintbrush that bothered him. In hindsight, it’s clear that his
difficulties were due to the fact that he wasn’t connected to his body. In
psychological terms, this is called dissociation. His therapist eventually gave
up on the painting, and they tried other methods. But three years after he
first painted in therapy, he started studying art in a folk high school. Karén
underwent therapy for 13 years, and finished the therapy a month before he
moved from Stockholm to Helsinki in the fall of 2018, after receiving his MFA.
Thanks to therapy, he is now a person with a functioning emotional life.
Thanks to therapy, he is now a visual artist. The exhibition text is a tender
reflection on the artist’s relationship with one of the most important people
he has met, his therapist, a person he will never meet again.
In the exhibition, he now attempts to do what he couldn’t do twenty years
ago—to paint his emotions. Angry, sad, happy… how do you paint that? And
what do those emotions look like?

The exhibition has received support from the Swedish Cultural Foundation.