Fotograf Magazine

The photographic work of Finnish artist Elina Brotherus is founded on the intertwining of reflection and construction. Her trademark approach is the introduction of personal mythologies and feminine topics into landscape photography. In the second half of the 20^th century, when she created her first well-known series of photographs, this was the tried and tested approach used by several other artists for animating their images’ content level. The innovative approach that separates extreme and sometimes voyeuristic-masochistic and intentionally aestheticized poetic environmental self-portraits from similar photographic approa­ches is the painterly perception (via the camera) of the photographed motif. This perception grows out of the photographer’s sensitive way of working with the constellation of light in the resulting images, giving them their specific atmosphere and acting as a strong unifying element.