Päivi Takala’s solo exhibition Be With Me is on view at Cecilia Hillström Gallery, in Stockholm, until 31 October 2025. The exhibition features a series of new paintings, continuing Takala’s recent explorations on the human way of being with other living things.
“Päivi Takala’s paintings ignite a visual curiosity at once. Both the soft hues and the intense blackness have the allure of a stoically restrained visual voice. There is nothing laboured in these precise, airy works that rest securely in their own reality. An artistic power has been mobilised here. (…)
The primary motifs that Takala has explored recently – horses and swans – are symbol-laden and rooted in history. People have depicted animals since time immemorial. The deeper religious and aesthetic significances of animals to those who created the first cave paintings have been lost to us, however. Takala instead draws our attention to the paradoxical fact that we in the West often approach animals and nature through depictions, logotypes and trademarks that sometimes gain cult status. But Takala’s paintings are neither social critiques nor condemnations of various kinds of luxury consumerism. They are not moral reflections but suggest a contemplative dimension. The paintings are visual ruminations on the world and visual culture created by mankind.”
–excerpt from exhibition text by Joanna Persman
Image: Päivi Takala, On Your Side, 2025, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 cm. Photo: Jussi Tiainen
