Hiltunen’s art is by no means limited solely to dealing with gender themes. Her paintings are always multi-layered receptacles of multiple narratives, and it is ultimately up to the viewer to add the final interpretation. For Hiltunen herself, light and color are just as important as the subject and thematic content. Her brilliant command of color can be regarded as one of her stylistic hallmarks.

The exhibition features works painted on canvas and paper as well as a selection of sculptures. Hiltunen regards herself primarily as a painter, and painting defines her approach to her process. She grew interested in sculpting over a decade ago and feels there are certain affinities between working with clay and the paintbrush, although it has taken her years to recognize this similarity. Hiltunen has been painting on paper for many years. Paper is a medium with special immediacy, and this finds reflection in the vivid style of her works on paper.

Hiltunen portrays female figures that mirror her personal experiences and her existence in the body of a girl and woman. Over the years, her personal life has crept into her art to a growing degree, not directly as autobiography or self-portraiture, but through the depiction of her inner reality. Some of the characters in her paintings represent the artist and her friends and loved ones, while others are imaginary or fictive characters, like proposals for possible realities.

The artist believes that a painting can capture personal experience without necessarily being a recognizable self-portrait. Although details from the artist’s real life might leak into her paintings, each work constitutes its own intact reality. Many layers of meaning emerge during the painting process, and these meanings can be interpreted from a variety of perspectives and frameworks. One of the universally relatable aspects of her paintings is the state of arrested melancholy they portray. Her characters stare at us with blank faces devoid of expression, as if they were waiting for something to happen. With glazed eyes fixed on a distant horizon, they lounge in slumped postures in various settings, conveying a tangible sense of being stuck in a frozen state of inbetweenness.