Kalervo Palsa

Hugo Kalervo Palsa (March 12, 1947 - October 3, 1987), or Kalle was a Finnish artist in a style that has been described as fantastic realism.

Life

His life evinced a good degree of northern madness. Among his local contemporaries of Kittilä in Lapland he had the reputation of a drunken artist masturbating at home and painting furiously.

Related Topics:
Kittilä - Lapland

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He felt haunted both by his perverse urges and the provincial and narrow-minded mental perimeter of his northern hometown.

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While he lived there, his abode was a tiny studio cabin which was closer to a shack than a house. He wired it for electricity by drawing a long extension cable from a nearby house. He called it his "Getsemane" after the biblical site, or sometimes his "castle in the clouds".

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Upon his death two rumors spread in the local community. One that he had in a drunken stupor collapsed into a snowbank, and died from exposure. The other that he had hung himself. The latter was more understandable, since several of his self-portraits featured a hangman's noose around his neck, and several other of his paintings also used the symbology of hanging.

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The real circumstances of his death - lying in bed with pneumonia, without anyone checking to see how he was doing - were perhaps, and regrettably more fitting to an artist, but not to the figure they knew.

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During his life he had many artist friends such as Reidar Särestöniemi, but only two real supporters; his mother, and a soul-mate/muse he found in Maj-Lis Pitkänen, a psychiatrist specialising in troubled children who shared his morbid view of the world. Maj-Lis was the sister of his first infatuation Maaret who rebuffed Kalervo Palsa, but led him to meet her sister. Maj-Lis and Kalle exchanged views and forged a profound meeting of minds.

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After his death Maj-Lis fought a protracted and bitter battle to raise an appropriate cenotaph for "Kalle". The monument shaped like a stylized seed or bullroarer was viewed by the parish as being pagan, or even representing female sexual organs. Many voices proclaimed that it was a mistake to let the "pervert" be buried into holy ground to begin with.

Related Topics:
Bullroarer - Pagan

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Over time, the notables from Kittilä, who once strenously opposed the monument, have instead begun to express pride that an internationally renowned artist was a local boy.

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