On a scholarship to Salzburg, Austria, Helsinki-based painter Veronika Oesterman started painting pictures of the city’s buildings and streets. ‘The clean lines of buildings give the space a particular energy, an edge,’ she says.
This interest led to her current subject. She painted her first cranes in 1997, and has since done about 40. ‘When my son was an infant, I often walked the city shores pushing the pram. I had just found a studio at the Cable Factory, next to the Ruoholahti docks. The raw beauty of the cranes suddenly struck me. Cranes give the city a statuesque feel, a sense of space and perspective.’
‘I would say the impression of space comes from the fact that the cranes are so big and impressive, powerful even. It makes one feel very little standing in front of one, the same kind of feeling that you would get in a big cathedral.’
Not everyone would consider a crane beautiful – but she does. ‘I don’t think cranes are ugly, they are monumental. They form the structure of the painting. They are also the sharp edges where the light is captured.’
‘I paint all sorts of cranes. What I’m interested in is where the crane is, in it’s surroundings and how it behaves in that very light and landscape.’ ‘I find the cranes fascinating. As a child I used to imagine that they were exotic animals, like giraffes or dinosaurs, so in that sense I find there is a wild beauty about them,’ she says.
As a child, Oesterman says she felt painting was her only real talent, and so decided to pursue it. After studying at the Free Art School in Helsinki, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, and the Massana Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona. Since, she has had more than 20 private exhibitions. Among her influences are Richard Serra and Mark Rothko.
Her next show takes place in May at the Cable Factory (Kaapeletehdas) in Helsinki, where her paintings – which average several thousand Euros, depending on size – will be shown.