I had been contemplating the different dimensions of the mind and existence even before I began to express my visions through painting in 2017. My life underwent a major turning point in 2014, when I understood life from a completely new perspective. That same year, I began an intense reflection on life and existence, which continues to this day. The different layers of life and the various methods of exploring it have brought me closer to understanding not only myself but also the reality that surrounds me. My life has been filled with different perspectives and theories, but also with insights and learning experiences that have shaped me into a person who strives for consistency and solution-oriented thinking. The world no longer seems so black and white, even though, on the other hand, everything is ultimately based on very simple and unchanging rules in this unpredictable crossfire of events, issues, and problems.
The White Room Story 2018
The White Room story is one of the first writings that dealt with the cube of the self and the dialogue I had with myself. Years later, the story still resonates in dimensional theory and self-examination. The story is worth experiencing and reading for yourself; it needs no further explanation.
Life is in the shape of a circle -books 2019
Completed and published in 2019, Life is Circular, a six-step self-exploration, was a groundbreaking book for me personally. Several years of self-exploration and the insights it brought came together in one framework. In the same year, I published a workbook in the same series, which dealt with problems and their solutions, understanding, acceptance, letting go, and the self. Life is circular ideology became the basis for the philosophy of self-examination, which I have used in various situations in my life.
At the time, the idea was already very hypercubist, but I was not yet able to structure my thinking into separate dimensions. However, it was clear that the dimension in which we experience things is different from the one in which we process them. In addition to this, the subject of my research was the stage of my own self, which I tried to reach through self-examination. I have always understood that there is a thinking self, but there is also another self that understands my meaning and purpose. The latter has tried to tell me this in many different ways throughout my research journey, through various visual visions and memory traces during my painting processes.
My thinking at that time focused on observing and exploring life. I remember having numerous experiences of how, by utilizing thought processes, I was able to shape not only my ways of thinking and acting, but also to construct my reality on a conceptual level to my liking. These experiences were also reflected in my paintings in the form of various geometric shapes and views of the structures of our reality.
Life is in the shape of a circle – articles, 2019-2020
The Life is circular articles continued where the books left off. These articles presented for the first time the interaction of information with the individual and the interaction of the individual with information in general. In addition, the theme of primitivism and intelligence, which is a strong factor in the philosophy of life, was further elaborated.
Only an animal that can speak, 2020
The year 2018 marks the dates of my first poems and stories, which I wrote in connection with my reflections on life and reality. Although I considered my self-reflective texts to be very factual and practical examples of life and reality, I also took a slightly freer approach to describing reality in words. In one story, called ”The White Room,” I write about a cube and two characters talking to each other. During the conversation, I talk to another character, who is also me. So the character is talking to a copy of himself, to himself, inside the cube. Of course, the poems dealt with other things as well. I wrote about the longing for love, the illusions brought on by marital chemistry, and the structures of our reality.
The selected poems were published in a poetry book in 2020. It was titled Vain eläin, joka osaa puhua (Just an Animal That Can Talk). During that time, I consciously explored the structures of our reality, reflecting on nature, the structure of nature, and myself as a creator in relation to it. I remember often sitting by the sea, looking at the horizontal horizon, feeling small and quietly reflecting. The poems dealt with emotions, feelings, life’s contradictions, and events. The poems also dealt with the structures of our reality. One poem about cubism that was significant to me was also written during that period, which said: ”Cubist, or nudist of the mind? Multiple dimensions, spoken aloud. I let the triangles settle into a house.” In the same year, I painted my first cubist works.
Dimensions speak, 2022
I had been studying at the Kankaanpää Art School for a couple of years, exploring cubism through both painting and thinking. In 2022, I wrote my first essay, titled ”Dimensions speak,” in which I discussed my thoughts on cubism and dimensions. The essay Dimensions speak II was even more extensive, in which I compiled theories on perspective, the history of cubism, and dimensions. At that time, I had been making cubist works using collage techniques and had already attempted to take traditional cubism a step further, but without success. The feedback on my research into the cubist style and my paintings was not very encouraging. I was advised to give it up several times. However, art has always been like science to me, so cubism was the only right subject for me to study.
In my written reflections, I pondered the fourth dimension through traditional cubism, but also through my personal view. I then developed the idea that, for me, the fourth dimension is the dimension of the mind and thought, whose greatest tool is imagination. I realized then that I could deconstruct and reconstruct arrangements according to my mind, but also according to my personal view. However, I was always trapped in my two-dimensional thinking, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not escape the two-dimensional surface. At that time, I began to use old wallpaper, cardboard, and magazine clippings as a collage technique, hoping to incorporate realistic elements into a painterly work to depict the interaction of different dimensions, but this proved insufficient. Hypercubism also came to mind quite unexpectedly around that time. I began to ponder the term in my thoughts.
Mikulandská’s research, 2023
The Prague Academy of Fine Arts, AVU, accepted me as an exchange student in 2023. For six months, I lived in Prague in the city center on a street called Mikulandská in a nice apartment complex, in a back room. During my first week of studies, while giving a presentation about myself, the opinions of the professors who taught me at that school, as well as those of the students, became clear. ”Why do you paint hundred-year-old paintings?” I was asked.
I also reached the first creative crossroads in my life, as I was dissatisfied with my personal exploration of cubism. During the first two months, I tried to figure out how to express my views on and move my research forward. One of the professors, with whom I usually had discussions in the form of criticism, encouraged me to draw. After that, I started drawing.
A quick, observation-based style emerged, centered on charcoal marks and the spatial background coloring that formed around them. The image was simple, but it still revealed the structures of the subject. Admittedly, on a two-dimensional surface. I felt that I had returned to my creative processes. This style supported my thoughts, thought processes, and quick observations of life.
Inside the Cube, 2024
My studies at the Kankaanpää Art School were coming to an end. After returning to Finland from my studies in Prague, I had several exhibitions where I used my new style in my works. My works once again took the form of collages, and a new element appeared in my works: acoustic panels made of peat. The acoustic panels could be sculpted into three-dimensional shapes, and I wondered if this was the turning point where I had found what I had been searching for so earnestly. My final project, Revelation, consisted entirely of layers of glued acoustic panels, collages, photo collages, and everything was built around a delicate carbon line.
I wrote my thesis, Inside the Cube (2024), in which I presented the Theory of Dimensions for the first time. I already knew at that point that the ideology that life is circular and the Theory of Dimensions are pairs of each other; I just needed a little time to digest it. However, these three different dimensions were what I consciously wanted to depict in my final painting project. Unfortunately, I did not succeed in doing so. This, too, was a kind of knot in my creative work. I felt that I had the theory and the material, but I still failed to express it in the way I had imagined. Although I dealt with hypercubism in my publication, I also expressed my disappointment in myself.
The present: Hypercubism, 2025
The manifesto and philosophy of hypercubism have been written, but the work is just beginning. In my studio in Viiala, the studies are already in the process of being completed, and they truly embody the written philosophy.
Let this serve as a reminder for new ideas.