Mikael Siirilä (b. 1978, Helsinki, Finland) is a darkroom artist who approaches photography as a slow-paced reflective practice. His small individual photographs examine the themes of absence, presence and outsiderhood. Characters appear immersed in their inner worlds and moments of being: simultaneously absent and intensely present. The pictures also reveal the outsider’s gaze, lost in observation and reflection. Mikael's subjects appear lost in thought and disconnected from time and identifiable places. His visual style can be recognised by the pronounced film grain, dominating black elements and image edges as a source of poetic mystery. 

"The craft of printmaking is inseparable from my artistic expression. The slow, contemplative process lends the pictures a calmness. I make pictures I want to stare at, feel and become lost in. Again and again." The photographs are handmade silver gelatin prints on fibre-based paper, toned with black tea tannins. The prints are relatively small in size, cut edgeless and ideally float framed as if suspended in space.