Overgrown subconscious

What happens when you encounter something so captivating that you simply cannot resist? In ed.art’s new art release — the lithography Comet in My Garden —Finnish artist Aki Turunen explores the magnetic pull of infatuation. This visual work centers on being captivated —not necessarily by another person, but rather by a new culture or a material object.

Turunen’s initial sketch for Comet in My Garden depicted an encounter between two people. To make the work more profound and intriguing, he replaced one of the figures with a parrot holding a flower in its beak, from which pollen is scattering. The exotic bird is based on a wallpaper pattern found in the historic Palazzo Chigi in Rome. In the finished work, the parrot also serves a distinct psychological function; viewed through a Jungian lens, the bird embodies the more colorful, peculiar, and unknown aspects of our own personalities.

The artwork serves as an intersection for a range of cultural and historical reference points. The title Comet in My Garden, for instance, is drawn directly from the lyrics of the Spanish folk song "Una Estrella en mi jardín" by Mari Trini, while the stylized fish on the comet’s tail were inspired by Islamic miniatures Turunen studied during visits to museum Davids Samling in Copenhagen. Several other figures also appear in the lithography, such as playful dragons and frogs; these are inspired by marginal illustrations in medieval manuscripts.

The composition of Comet in My Garden also experiments with how we read images across different cultures. In our Western tradition, we decode texts and images from left to right, whereas in Islamic tradition, the reverse applies. Turunen chose to have the star fall into the garden in a way that aligns with the Western viewer’s expected gaze (from left to right), while simultaneously playing with the idea of how the image’s dynamics would have changed had the star instead landed moving from right to left.

Turunen describes his own creative subconscious as “heavily overgrown.” He works intuitively, never knowing in advance which images will rise to the surface. This approach influenced the technical printing process; rather than preparing all the lithographic stones and color layers before printing began, Turunen allowed the artwork to evolve through an ongoing dialogue with the medium. The final result is a piece with a strong sense of spontaneity—a lithography featuring seven distinct colors.

Purchase Aki Turunen’s lithography Comet in My Garden here.