Susanna Pälviä

Basic information

b. 1964, Lahti
Visual Artist
Residence: Mynttilä

Contact information

Phone number: +358456507033

Artist’s Statement

Our time is full of images, words and noise. It’s difficult to filter meaningful from worthless, truth from lies, or even to see any meaning at all in everything you encounter.

In my work I try to create space to quiet and to calm, space beyond words and noice.
Working intuitively, I often get positively surprised when letting go of extra control and forcing.
A piece of work may carry meanings to me, when spectator may find other meanings altogether. Thats fine with me.

I love to work with my hands and get enthusiastic of new materials and ways of working.
Listening the silent messages in my materials is important; recycled material may contain stories, a bended branch silence of the forest, a pigment darkness of the earth.

Latest works include plaster, gauze, wax, pigments, linen oil- and chalk paint as material. Also lot of wood is used: Branches, stems, roots and burls. Environmentally friendly materials are my first choice. Living at countryside gives me a large choice of material from close by.

The content of my work I find from surrounding life, inner circle, something I read or current issues. Wondering of our indifference in relation to nature, its creatures, other humans and the state of environment, I work on the worry and sorrow this creates. Even if our time seems gloomy and hopeless in many ways, I try not to forget humor, hope, and beauty altogether.

Often I return to themes of giving up, the fragility of life, memory and forgetting. Themes brought close partly my elderly mothers slow disappearance to a memory sickness. Life wears us out in number of ways.
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Bio

Visual artist,
Born in Lahti, Finland, 1964.

Lives and works in Mynttilä village, Mäntyharju.
Since 2009 using the old station on Mynttilä as her working space.

Studied art in Netherlands, in AKI, Enschede Academy of Arts and Design, Graduated 2000 from Mixed media department .

Works mainly with installation, spatial work and photography.
Using a large variety of materials in her work.