Mira Kurkiala - Artist

Originalmålning "Mellan vågor"

Tavlan är målad utifrån naturområdet Bjuröklubb som ligger vid havet utanför Skellefteå. Pigment från jord och stenar har plockats från platsen och malts ner till pigmentpulver som målats in i tavlan.

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Site-specific paintings 2025

This is a new series of paintings that I will work on during the year 2025. The theme of the paintings is visiting different places that I pick and use pigments from and which give new life to my paintings.

I will paint with inspiration from the places but with a lot of imagination, therefore it will not be an exact image. It will be my own interpretation and a tribute to different natural areas mainly around Västerbotten.

Under each painting it is stated which natural area the painting was painted from and which pigments were used.

To the series

Original painting Forest Garden

The first painting for the series is finished!

The painting is based on the location: Arboretum Norr, Baggböle

North and south of Baggböle Manor just outside the center of Umeå is Arboretum Norr, a forest garden with about 2800 different trees and shrubs. The site is beautifully situated with deciduous forest-covered slopes down towards Baggböleforsen on the north bank of the Umeälven River.

Painted with: - Soil picked from Baggböle, just outside Umeå - Sand from the site as texture for the background - Coal and ash from the fireplace in the Arboretum - Acrylic paint - Details with oil pastel

Buy painting here

New collection "Rhythm of Nature"

Using the colors of nature, I have created four paintings with different landscapes in an intuitive flow where I have let my imagination take center stage. They contain many recurring elements that are visible in the paintings and tie them together. The entire collection is together a kind of cycle with life from the sea, mountain landscapes, deep valleys, plants, space, insects and dense forests mixed with abstract and organic forms where the earth pigments have found their own paths and patterns.

I have picked the earth pigments from rocks, ash and coal, hammered, mortared, sieved and mortared some more to produce a sufficiently fine pigment powder. The pigments are then mixed with a plant-based binder and lots of water.

Limited edition art prints and original paintings are being released this Wednesday!

See the entire collection here

Original paintings

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Art print

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Do you want to learn to paint more intuitively with flowing colors?

I have created an online course that you can start today!

In the course I will show you step by step how I paint THREE paintings on THREE different surfaces using different techniques. You will get to experiment, dare to test new ways of creating based on your own expression.

After the course you will:

- Use new techniques and methods in your painting

- Have greater knowledge of which materials you want to work with and what properties they have

- Paint more by feeling

- Know how to paint effortlessly and fluidly with acrylic paint and water

- Feel inspired to dare to experiment more in your painting

- Create something based on yourself that feels meaningful

Read more about the course here!

Paintings of natural pigments

I pick stones, earth, clay, charcoal and ash to create my own pigments for my paintings.

I work the stones with hammer, mortar and sieve the powder until it is fine enough to use as pigment for paint. I then add a binder and the millions of old stones are given new life as color in my art.

See paintings here!

"Earth pigments are not lifeless rocks. They are constantly circulating, they are mysterious metamorphic agents of art made by complex ecologies, biomes, volcanoes, extinct creatures, fault lines, sea-floors, swamps, deserts, fertile soils, and dead people and their living waste." - Heidi Gustafson

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