Pasi Välimaa

Pasi Välimaa was born in Finland in 1968 and was one of the leading textile artists in the Nordics. The collection of the Röhsska Museum includes a few works by Välimaa – the powerful weaving Svart Rya and the delicate, poetic piece Jag står ensam bland blommorna som fallit till marken (I Stand Alone Among the Flowers That Have Fallen to the Ground).

Pasi Välimaa was one of the leading textile artists in the Nordics. He was born in 1968 in Nystad, Finland, but spent many years working in Sweden as an artist and designer. In 2009, he became a professor at Textil-Kropp-Rum, HDK Steneby at the University of Gothenburg. He worked with various techniques, including dyeing, weaving, embroidery, sewing, and printing.

In 2004, Pasi Välimaa received The Nordic Award in Textiles, the largest textile art prize in the Nordics. In 2014, he was awarded the Prince Eugen Medal for outstanding artistic achievement. Pasi Välimaa passed away in France in July 2019.

Svart Rya by Pasi Välimaa is displayed in the Architecture Hall at the Röhsska Museum.

Monochromatic Feelings

Svart Rya was created in the late 1990s and is a monochromatic rag rug in varying shades of black. It is one of the artist’s most important works, and it was his personal wish for it to be part of the Röhsska Museum’s textile collection. This wish was fulfilled in 2020, and the rug was exhibited in a small solo exhibition in the Architecture Hall of the museum that same year.

Among the fabrics is a dress his mother wore while expecting him, which held emotional significance for the artist.

Svart Rya was a highly significant work for Välimaa and one of the first pieces he wove himself. It took an entire year to complete. The rug is made from various fabrics, all dyed in color baths to create shifts and life within the textiles, which include many different materials: wool, linen, cotton, and silk. Among the fabrics is a dress his mother wore while expecting him, which held emotional significance for the artist.

The rug was woven and knotted on a large loom in one piece. Both the warp and the weft yarns are black and made of 100% linen, woven in a plain weave. Its size is monumental: 3.20 m (height) x 2.80 m (width).

Other works by Välimaa in the collection.

The Röhsska Museum’s collection also includes Pasi Välimaa’s work I Stand Alone Among the Flowers That Have Fallen to the Ground, which consists of eight delicate fabric pieces dyed in red and orange. The piece alludes to a poem by the Chinese-Australian author Ouyang Yu.

You can find more information about Pasi Välimaa’s works in our digital collections.