My artistic MA thesis deals with self-portrait. What kind of visual imagery and art practise has the personal experience of breast cancer produced - and still produces? How has it coloured and shaped my artistic expression and thinking? Visualizing my thinking through art has been my way to communicate with the others.

In the visual imagery of my thesis, three layers and three points of view can be seen: the private, the shared and the public. The private includes my visual journal, consisting of the photos I took during the cancer process. The shared includes the power pictures, the Warrior and Frida. The public includes the video installation Rintarinnan, the art piece Turvaverkko (Safety net) and the new artwork, created specifically for the final thesis project, exhibited at the AMF Gallery (3-26.9.2014)

I observe and analyse myself, my experiences and thoughts in the process of art creation, with the help of images and documents, taken both before but also during the process of creation. My framework is phenomenology. The images and artwork have, due to the truth, vision and thoughts they deliver, meaning to the public and to the way the (female) body is perceived in society.

My artwork processes the emotions and feelings that the cancer experience in me have raised. It is almost self-evident that the material I have used are bras – the one piece of clothing most related to breast cancer.