Paula Pääkkönen

Paula Pääkkönen is a glassblower and artist who has chosen glass as her primary medium because of its challenges and endless possibilities. Glassblowing techniques are a major source of inspiration for her and an integral part of her artistic practice. As an artist, she explores themes related to childhood, memories and the imagination. Pääkkönen has been working on her ‘Assorted Flavours’ series since 2017. The series consists of unique, mouth-blown ice-cream sculptures inspired by summer memories from her childhood.

These happy memories became particularly important to the artist as she struggled with mental health issues over the past decade. Through her colourful art, colour gradually began to return to her life, replacing the black-and-grey mental landscape of depression. Pääkkönen’s art explores contrasts and contradictions – cold ice cream and a hot glass, or colourful, humorous art and a heavy, depressed state of mind. The series of works also explores the proportions of life: a little girl, a small ice cream that still felt too big to eat before it had time to melt – a big girl, a huge ice cream that, at the end of a glass-blowing pipe, feels just as big and difficult to control as an ice-cream stick melting in the hands of a ten-year-old.

With the ‘Dreaming of Summer’ exhibition, I want to create a colourful ice-cream oasis in the middle of November, where you can pause for a moment to soak up some colour therapy. I created the works in this exhibition last spring and summer and photographed them whilst the flowers were in full bloom, capturing the brief splendour of the Finnish summer. With their colours and playful shapes, the works aim to bring a burst of summer energy and light into the darkness of the coming winter. In my daily life, I follow the cycle of nature, and I wanted to capture the fleeting beauty of flowers in the colours of my works. Just as the seasons turn and the first rosebud of summer opens, so too do I change. Summer, just like winter, is a time for renewal and rest. Take a moment to recall the warmth of the past summer and step peacefully into winter with that warmth in your heart, trusting that it will keep you warm until spring.