Pauliina Pöllänen, FI

Pauliina Pöllänen’s new works draw upon the lineage of figurative sculpture through fragmented representation of the human body and the expressive potential of the material.

Playing on the fetishized notions concerning the body and the material, the slightly abstracted group of sculptures bridge narratives around aspirations and anxieties connected to human mythology. Through the expressive potential of crank clay, different conceptions of containment take shape through art historical and anthropological modes. The body is presented through porous, vessel-like parts which share stylistic characters with the pioneering female ceramicists of the Viennese Secessionist movement, the natural world, and folklore.

Pauliina Pöllänen (b. 1983, Finland) has a PhD in artistic research from The Art Academy, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen, 2023. In recent years, Pöllänen has exhibited at the CLAY Museum in Denmark, Kunsthall Grenland, Gustavsberg Porcelain Museum, and Uppsala Art Museum in Sweden. She has been a resident artist at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2018, and at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia in 2016. Her works can be found in the collections of KODE, Nasjonalmuseet, and Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, among other places.