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Salmela
Art Centre
Nissbacka
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Dame Fortune Favors Ignorance
2003, 160x120 cm
Red crayon
Artistīs Collection
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Drawings
Along with the sculptures the exhibition presents a selection of drawings, produced in ink-wash technique, from 1962 to 2003. The selection has been made from Laila Pullinen's vast collection of drawings, and mainly presented are figures, in which the human being has acted as a starting point. In addition to these there are also presented a few large, new red crayon drawings, where the interpretation of the allegoric dimension has been taken even further.
Drawing has throughout the sculptor's career been an important retreat from sculpting. Yet Pullinen considers it as important as sculpting, and even more interesting is her way of seeing drawing precisely as an equal to sculpture, even as a similar process. Like in sculpting, Pullinen does not study the work through models, but draws directly into full scale. In both, it's about creating a physical form and here again, size functions as the key factor. The size of Pullinen's drawings is directly proportional to the size of her sculpture: the works obey human proportions. This links them, in addition to Antiquity, with the Italian Renaissance.
In one drawing of a series named Venus, a head of a donkey can be distinguished; in fact, the work refers to an etching by Giacinto Gimingnaci (1606-1681), i.e. Dame Fortune Favors Ignorance. The donkey, the symbol for the uncivilized and uneducated, treads on books of science and art and a palette of colors. Unlike the figure in Gimingnaci's etching, the figure in Pullinenīs drawing is not embracing the donkey, but seems to cast her eyes upwards, as if asking for help. The position of the hands refers to the symbolism of the sacral works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The work can be interpreted as a comment on the position of the artist in modern day Finland: there is lack of knowledge and understanding even in questions like taxation.
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