2026 Votiivilahja solo exhibition, Toinen Silmä, 19.3 – 29.3

Gallery open Tuesday to Friday 12 pm – 5 pm, Saturday and Sunday 11 am – 4 pm.

In her exhibition Votiivilahja, or “votive offering”, dedicated to the goddess of love, Paavela explores romantic yearning through clichéd girlish fantasies and devotional poetry. The body of work takes as its starting point Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite, in which the poet begs for her feelings to be reciprocated. The exhibition’s title, in turn, refers to a gift offered to the sacred, symbolizing a wish or a plea.

Paavela draws inspiration from a pseudo medieval knight and princess setting that alludes to a romantic fantasy and the humiliating nature of its pursuit. The longing for fairy tale love and the pleading for divine intervention both contain the awkward intensity of desire, which is something Paavela seeks to reveal through painting.