Kreetta Järvenpää
FLORAL DESIGNS. WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY BY KREETTA JÄRVENPÄÄ.
My mom was a true flower lover. We had a garden and a huge amount of house plants. I have two older sisters, and I remember how we were always photographed next to flowers by her. We were dressed well next to the flowers like roses in June or Dahlias in autumn. I remember how, when we had a cleaning day, I had to wipe the dust from the huge house plant —an orange tree— in our living room.
Now that same orange tree lives at my workspace. It’s 56 years old. She grew it from the seed of an orange she bought from the grocery store in 1965. It’s mine now after she passed away. But I have to say, when I was young, I swore that I would never have house plants or a garden —they were too much work. “Never say never”, a lesson to learn. In 2016 I decided to work with them. Now I love them, and they’re part of my life.
The light of 17th century still life paintings, music, artists such as Tage Andersen, the 1920s era, surrealism, movies. It can even be a certain kind of movement in the wind, the sound of waves or a good morning coffee: these are things that inspire me. I’m also very fascinated about the surreal, and in my work, I try always go beyond normal and real. Time is also an interesting point of view. When you take a photo time stops. You can’t see what happened before, and you can only imagine what happens next. It is very unnatural to have these still moments. In nature nothing ever stops. Nature is all about movement and change. Flowers change like us; they get old.
I am getting closer to the real question of why I make art with flowers, and you know they are not just flowers: that I can say. Maybe they are a bridge between me and the world I’m living in and the other side or reality we cannot see. It is a good place to escape from reality. I have had a few losses in my life, and they have changed me. And I feel I need my own space, where I can be without feeling emptiness and despair. Flowers do give me comfort and joy, but with them I can also express myself as an artist.
