PETS OF ANCIENT COURTS IN MY NEW TAPESTRY

I have recently finished a new painting, which will be shown in the “Young Gentlemen’s Room” in Turku Castle (Finland) from the 16^th of June 2016. The motif of the painting brings together two things which existed in the castle during the 16^th century: pets and tapestries.

 

My “tapestry” is actually acrylic and ink painting on old plush carpets, sewn one on another, 160 x 220 cm. Thepets described in it, were kept in European courts during medieval and renaissance times, and even earlier.   

          Dogs have been the best friends of humans for more than 10000 years.  In medieval times already, the small dogs were bred for companions of the ladies and their children. Elisabeth I and Mary Stuart were both very keen on miniature dogs. Mary Stuart had her dogs dressed in velvet. Elisabeth I favored “pocket beagles”, which were only 20-30 cm high. 

           Ring-necked (or rose-ringed) parakeets were popular already among the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is told that Alexander the Great enjoyed having them as pets. 

           Exotic animals like guenons (Cercopithecus) were rare pets. However, Duchess  of Finland, later the Queen Consort of Sweden Catherine Jagiellon  (Katarina Jagellonica) brought among many other luxury items a pet guenon to Turku Castle in 1562.

 

My Ocean Rug and Beluga Whale

My paintings and drawings often represent animals or some kind of human-animal hybrids. Through them I am, however, looking at social power structures. I am especially interested in different roles and interrelations between groups or flocks, as well as between individual members of them. The other motif I use frequently is architecture. For me buildings are also living beings.

Arctic Ocean, 2016, Acrylic and ink on an old carpet, 226 x 68 cm

 As you see, the Arctic Ocean is a portrait of a beluga whale. Some years ago I was in northern Norway. It was a cold and light Nordic summer evening, and I was walking along the fjord shore. Then, suddenly, I noticed how many white backs and heads rose from the waves and sank again. It was a huge pod of beluga whales slowly passing by. There were hundreds of them. It was an impressive view, like a strange ceremonial procession.

Mediterranean, 2016,

Acrylic and ink on an old carpet

59 x 85 cm

My Beluga whale visits in the exhibition Menagerie – Animals in the Art Zoo,

Toolbox, Berlin

 29.4. – 21.5.2016

The painting belongs to a series of portraits of sea animals, all from different seas. I call it Ocean Rug, because all of them are painteed on old plush carpets.

Here some of those:

Red Sea, 2016, Acrylic and ink on an old carpet, 138 x 69 cm