Fellow NOE artist and ArtSpace curator Mark Maher interviewed Panu Puolakka about his work.

Like more than a few creative people on the often blurry line between the art and design worlds, you often produce editions of several hundred. Is this mostly an economic strategy, or is there something else driving this choice?

When I started using design as a technique or a method, the larger editions for some pieces came naturally. I see it as an integral part of the expression with certain works. I also rather like the ease of copying a piece that I invested so much energy in creating.

The celebration of sex, violence, and materialism are the well-worn mantras of our age - and a central theme of your own work as well. I’m sure it’s unfair to reduce an analysis of your work to being only a high-design, critical statement of our times. Or is it?

Those are some raw materials that i work with in the background though I would not say I aim to comment particularly on them. They are just present within some pieces just as, say, the idea of compassion is with “Highway Patrol” or the idea of hope is with my “Totenkopf” brooch.

Are you a “Finnish Artist” - or does that kind of label completely miss the point of your creative stance and trajectory?

I have always given my works titles in English and I’ve mostly exhibited outside Finland. But being labeled as a Finnish artist doesn’t bother me.

Tags: Add new tag, Interview, Mark Maher, Panu Puolakka

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