Tuula Lehtinen

SKO Laila (2018), cast porcelain and porcelain gold, 20cm, The Collection of The City of Gothenburg, Sweden

Tuula Lehtinen uses in her art all kinds of materials, from paper to porcelain. Her techniques, from painting through printmaking and porcelain painting to padding, embroidery, ceramic casting and mosaics, bring their own level to the artworks’ substance. The works subtly speak of genders and the conceptualization of aesthetics thought as feminine.

Lehtinen is an aesthete who gives us the permission to become intoxicated on nostalgy and beauty. The elegant feminism of the artworks gives deserved credit to traditional applied graphic art, often perceived as feminine. It would be all too easy to merely ironize porcelain dishes’ flowery decals.

Lehtinen expertly manipulates the viewer into questioning their own sense of aesthetics. References to coffee cups, landscape clichés and ornamental objects have been executed in a consistently ostentatious manner. Often, the end result is an aesthetic experience almost painfully twisting your mind.