Jorma Puranen is mostly known thanks to the artwork exploring the varieties of the past and present. Subjects used in his work vary from the use of illustration to photography techniques. Although most of them is based around the idea of departure the subject that he finds in archives or museums, with fictive interpretations of his themes.
Icy Perspective is a new series of photographs created from old glass negatives and retouching he done on their surface to achieve one of a kind effect. Many of photographs come from the 1940s and 1950s and are quite popularised in Finland. By placing the glass negatives onto an intense light, the retouch is being allowed to be visible and formed ‘an almost drawing-like network overlaying the accurate photographic document.’
Puranen uses the light in a way that it allows him to mediate the images and functions as their metaphor. He believes that the light serves as the only real thing about the photography, the light that is coming out from the camera.
Jorma Puranen has become known for his works that stimulate considerations crossing the past and the present. His subject matter has ranged from illustrations of scholarly works and ethnographic photographs to historical portraiture, which points of departure are often found in archives or museums. Puranen has an undisciplined approach to files – fragmentary rather than systematic. His method has also proposed fictive interpretations of his themes.
