State-of-the-Arts Gallery is delighted to showcase the expressive paintings of the internationally acclaimed Finnish artist Soile Yli-Mayry from 1st to 30th November, 2010. The exhibition Asphalt Dream displays the artist’s latest collection which explores humanity in depth. Yli-Mäyry has held more than 250 solo exhibitions since 1976 in 25 countries, including Japan, China, India, the United Sates and more.
Art critic Niu Lan commented, ‘facing her works, one can touch joyous mood and a kind of optimistic attitude toward life’. ‘Human being is lonelier than ever before in the urban digital world,’ says Yli-Mäyry about her inspirations. What drives her to paint is the hope to introduce art as a bridge to connect human hearts and nature in today’s concrete jungle. Her works evoke hidden emotions, be it loneliness, joy, fear or tranquility, leading the audience to reflect and question; because it is only by answering questions that human beings find their roots – their connection with life.
Yli-Mäyry’s paintings revel expressionism. Her heavy use of palette knife has transformed the canvas into a 3-dimensional platform, achieving different effects, from a thin, even coat to thick lines to scraping lines into the painted canvas. The colors in Yli-Mäyry’s paintings are fresh, bright and vivid, expressing a kind of peaceful optimism that encourages human beings to dream in this concrete jungle.
About the Artist
Soile Yli-Mayry studied art at the Arts Academy in Germany in 1975 and since has exhibited in countries all over the world, in more solo exhibitions than most artists manage in a lifetime. This ensures that her art is easily recognizable for her unique style and high quality.
Yli-Mayry grew up in a small village in Ostrobothnia where both her parents were deaf-mutes. This meant that she lived in a quiet world where she learnt to express herself through visual means. It is no surprise that her art evokes so much emotion and is therefore so popular.
Yli-Mayry says “colors are like notes. If you have an absolute ear for music, you’ll notice if a pitch is wrong just as you would notice if this shape was suddenly missing from one of my painting.s”
