Sauli Suomela

Sauli Suomela is a Helsinki-based designer and artist. He graduated as a designer from the Helsinki University of Art and Design in 1998 and works as design director at Pentagon Design. In addition to his day-to-day business and design work, Suomela is actively involved in glass and painting. In 2010 he was awarded the title of Industrial Designer of the Year (together with Arni Aromana) by TKO, a member of the Industrial Design Association Ornamo, and in 2012 the Finnish State Design Committee awarded the State Prize for Design for long-standing meritorious work in the field of design. Suomela’s works are in the collections of the State Commission for Works of Art and the Finnish Museum of Glass, among others.

The Liquid Landscapes exhibition consists of a series of paintings in which a self-developed layering technique builds interesting areas of light and shadow into works in which translucent layers draw abstract landscapes, natural phenomena and emotional states of mind. The works are created by casting layers of epoxy resin coloured with liquid pigment. The layers of different colours create a glass-like surface where the colours blend in layers, creating a strong layered aesthetic and allowing for a very vivid and intense world of colour that is difficult to achieve in any other way. The layering created by the separate castings also builds cumulative differences in levels and changes in colour intensity into the work, creating another level of visuality to the overall aesthetic.