The topic of my thesis is exploiting art criticism in the planning and execution of art-work. I received an art critique from critic Eva-Johanna Mäkinen concerning my painting exhibition called The Beauty of Ugly. Mäkinen presented new ideas in terms of utilizing the pieces of aluminium cans in a more versatile manner in my artworks in the future. In my thesis I focus on exploiting these ideas and executing them in practice. My objective is to improve my artistic expression into a more diverse direc-tion and simultaneously research whether it is beneficial for an artist to advance ideas coming from the outside.

The theoretical context of my thesis is formed by literature discussing art in general, but also art criticism and the ethics of art. However, I mostly utilized the artistic guide books edited by Ken Howard. As the basis of my self-reflection I also used the feedback given by critic Eva-Johanna Mäkinen and my mentor Eeva-Liisa Koivumaa.

My thesis is practice-based. I have executed two new paintings and also carefully documented the working process by photographing it. The size of my paintings is 45x122 cm and I used acrylic paint, aluminium cans, wood glue and sand. One of the most important parts of this thesis is discussing and detailing the working process in order to illustrate the thinking process concerning the exploiting of the critic’s ideas. I also observed the finished artworks: how are the ideas given in the criticism showing in the results. I decided to proceed in this way because this way supported my objective to advance as an artist and to research the yet undiscovered opportunities of the material I have used.

In my thesis I learned that by utilizing criticism I can find new ways to exert mate-rial, even though I noticed that I am prone to stay in my comfort zone. I also learned to criticise my own artworks. I am satisfied with the finished artworks because they still show my vision and my abstract expression, but they also offer something new. I feel that I have succeeded in the exploiting of the criticism. It was important that I did not lose my point of view: the idea of what and why I was doing.