Welcome to the exhibition opening on Thursday, November 6th, 6 pm to 8 pm!
Artist meeting on Sunday, November 30th, at 1 pm. Free entry!
Pauliina Mäkelä’s exhibition AER consists of drawings, projector installations, and kinetic works. Mäkelä’s works are rich in detail, and portray the imaginative merging of the inner and outer worlds – of the living and the dreamlike. The body of work depicts an existence with surreal tones, and its context reaches from the symbolics of the still lifes of the 17th century to the magic of pre-cinema phantasmagorical performances. The title of the exhibition, AER, refers to air, breathing, and spirit, and the meanings are connected to both body and metaphysics. For Mäkelä, wind, breath, and moving air signify both a force of life and the transient nature of everything.
“Vegetation that creates oxygen becomes corporal, and corporal becomes phantasmal.”
Mäkelä’s elaborate and careful pen strikes are accompanied by mechanical works that have technical limitations but, at the same time, a magical freedom of expression. In the kinetic works, created by analogical methods, simple motors and controllers produce repetitive, looping movement. The body of work combines different working methods and techniques, and the works “sing” on different notes, in different registers. They form tense relations and comparisons, reaching beyond words.
Mäkelä’s art publication AER, published in the spring of 2025, is also available at Kunsthalle Turku. The book showcases her diverse work, ranging from drawings and installations to living pictures. The book also includes texts on the exhibition’s themes from philosophers Joonas S. Martikainen, Irina Poleshchuk, Erika Ruonakoski, and Jaakko Vuori, from the HARMAA collective. From 2021 to 2025, with the support from Kone Foundation, HARMAA studied the existential foundation of the post-truth era, combining artistic and philosophical expression.
Pauliina Mäkelä (1980) is a visual artist based in Turku, working with drawing and analogue kinetic art. Her artistic work often deals with the humane uncertainties and the cyclic, momentary nature of life. Mäkelä had a big solo exhibition, Pneuma, at Lahti Museum of Visual Arts Malva from November of 2024 to May of 2025. Her work has also been exhibited at Poikilo Museum in Kouvola, Rovaniemi Art Museum, Galleria Mältinranta of the Tampere Artists’ Association, Galleria Huuto in Helsinki, and K.H. Renlund Museum in Kokkola. Pauliina Mäkelä is also known as an illustrator. She was awarded the Illustrator of the Year award in 2021 and a World Illustration Award in 2023.
