I have always loved science fiction

solo show in HAA Gallery, Helsinki, 9-31.1.2026

Photos by Sauli Sirviö

I was 25 when Ann-Britt asked me to paint for her. She wanted me to express my

feelings, but I didn’t know how to do that. I hadn’t been taught as a child. But now she

was going to teach me, and she said: paint Angry. I tried, but it was embarrassing. I didn’t know how to paint, and I didn’t know how to feel Angry. She said: paint Happy, paint Sad. I just kept thinking why? What did I need feelings for? I just wanted to stop feeling bad, to stop hurting myself. I had cut a dolphin and other images into my skin. I had seen that other people cut straight lines into their skins, and I thought that their problems deserved to be taken seriously. My own problems were not real. Ann-Britt said that people with childhoods like mine often don’t live very long. She took me seriously. I wasn’t used to that. To me, nothing in my life felt real. Not until I met Ann-Britt.

I had been a criminal since I was a teenager, but I stopped when I started seeing Ann-Britt. I only did it to hurt myself anyway. But after I quit, I didn’t have anything to do all day. Mostly, I just lay in bed, watching TV. I was so lonely. For long periods, Ann-Britt was the only person I saw. We stopped painting, it just didn’t work. But Ann-Britt didn’t give up; we tried other methods. I started taking diﬀerent medications; they got me out of bed. Three years after I started seeing Ann-Britt, after I had painted for the first time, I started going to an art school. It was all Ann-Britt’s idea. I wanted to become an electrician or something, but she thought I should go back to school. She was the one that told me I was smart, not stupid and lazy like I thought I was. She was the one that supported me, who was there for me, through all my ups and downs. Ann-Britt believed in me, once a week, for 13 years.

It’s been 20 years since I painted that first time in therapy, seven since Ann-Britt and I last saw each other. She knew everything about me then; now new things have happened, things she doesn’t know. I have secrets again. I wonder what Ann-Britt is doing these days. Is she still working, helping others like me? I wonder how she is, what she does in her free time. Does she have children? I never asked about things like that, about her life. It was important to me that our relationship stayed professional, that we focus on my therapy. I wanted her to be only my therapist, but over the years she became more than that. She became my Ann-Britt.

Ann-Britt made me realize that I had a story that explained to others why I was the way I was. She helped me put into words how I felt.