Editing Kalervo Palsa (section)

== Art ==
[[File:Kalervo Palsan kotitalo Palsa-museossa.jpg|thumb|Kalervo Palsa Museum]] 
Kalervo Palsa used a varied palette of techniques and materials, including housepaint. He painted over 1,000 self-portraits.

Most of his works explore in graphic detail the dark side of humanity, and especially of his native northern regions, with prominent themes including grotesque sexuality, [[Sadism and Masochism|sadism]], homosexuality, bisexuality and a general emotional frigidity [[paraphilia]].

Palsa went through a brief phase of experimentation with [[abstract art]] while staying in New York City. According to his diaries, this phase ended suddenly one day when he saw an unconscious black man sprawled on a subway bench.

[[File:Finnish artist Kalervo Palsa's gravestone - panoramio.jpg|thumb|Kalervo Palsa gravestone]]
Besides [[Hieronymus Bosch]], his work has been compared to that of [[Frida Kahlo]]. His artistic influences include [[René Magritte]] and [[Vincent van Gogh]], and his works also include references to [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[August Strindberg]] and [[Jean Genet]]. On the first page of Eläkeläinen muistelee, he mentions other looser influences such as [[Jonathan Swift]] and [[Vladimir Lenin]], among others.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

Some researchers have noted that though he remained active in his work up to his death in 1987, his work did not show signs of the [[postmodernism]] evident in the work of many other artists of the time.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

===Notable works===
[[File:Kalervo Palsa Museum, Getsemane, the Artist's Studio - panoramio (3).jpg|thumb|Artist's studio]]
*''Turva'' ("Security") is a painting of a giant anus surrounded by horrifying images. At the center of the painting the anus opens as a window showing a man seated serenely in a rocking chair, apparently untouched by the horrors.
*''Missi Paskantaa'' ("A Beauty Pageant Contestant Takes a Dump"), a black-and-white inked comic strip. The work consists of a few pages of deadpan illustrated technical description of the practical ramifications of beauty pageant contestants having to defecate, and finally ends with an illustrated listing of varieties of consistency of faeces that might come out of such a girl's anus, with attendant analysis.
*''Eläkeläinen Muistelee'' ("Retiree Reminisces"), a black-and-white inked comic-book recounting a plethora of highly surreal homosexual sadistic tales.
*''Miehen Kuukautiset'' ("The Male Period"), a painting of a man's bleeding anus.
*''Vapautuminen'' ("Deliverance"), a painting of a man suspended in mid-air, hung by a rope attached around the glans of his own huge penis.
*''Uusi Ihminen'' ("New (Hu)Man"), a man giving birth through his anal opening.