Fruit of our labor

2025

oil & oil pastels on three canvases

20cm x 60cm

Spent my spring discovering Albania and a few other Balkan countries. The things that stayed in my mind the most, besides the encounters Im forever grateful for, were the mothers, aunties and grandmas, and a few specific fruits.

Figs. Olives. Pomegranates. Everywhere I went, I could see all three. Always close. Always being taken care of. I could feel the love they received to become this sweet and fulfilling.

The lovely Bosnian grandma who makes her own pomegranate juice from her garden every year, and sells it frozen on a hot day, I hope you know how much I loved getting to taste the fruit of your Labor. It made me think of the book I had just finished a few weeks earlier: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Simplified, she spoke of being aware of the many steps it took for a product to be available to you. To know its origin. Usually when I buy a fruit or a drink in Finland, it has passed through many layers of unknown labor. I loved being able to touch the persons hand, who hands her product of labor to me, in exhange for a product of mine.