‘Lemon Jelly Melancholy’ in progress at Elli Maanpää's Helsinki atelier.
LEMON JELLY MELANCHOLY
Acrylic on canvas || 100 cm x 150 cm || 2024
Available
When I painted Lemon Jelly Melancholy, I wanted to capture the complexity of emotions. The blue-haired woman in the painting is lost in her thoughts, and her expression tells two different stories. If you cover one side of her face, she looks content. Cover the other, and she appears sad. Together, her mixed expression embodies that bittersweet feeling of being “glad to be sad.”
She’s hugging herself gently in an oversized sweater or nightgown decorated with abstract patterns in cheerful colors like yellow and pink. It’s a quiet moment of introspection, where being immersed in deep thoughts doesn’t feel like a problem—it feels natural. This piece, like much of my work, reflects my love for exploring the nuances of self-expression.
Elli Maanpää with her painting ‘Lemon Jelly Melancholy’ in her Helsinki atelier.
‘Lemon Jelly Melancholy,’ a 150x100cm acrylic painting by Elli Maanpää, blending vibrant colors with introspective emotions."