Anu Penttinen
Designer (MA), Artist, Glassmaker
IG anupenttinen_colourpusher
Anu Penttinen has worked in the Nuutajärvi Glass Village since 2002. In addition to her artistic work and exhibitions, Anu strives to be active within the creative field and various collaborative projects. Her career includes also work and entrepreneurship as an events manager and restaurateur, which have offered an outlet for her diverse creative competence in concept and graphic design, content creation and gastronomy. In her freetime Anu is an avid student of the Japanese culture and language.
Anu has collaborated with many of the Finnish design houses as a freelance designer, while simultaneously creating her artistic language in glass. For example the Birds by Penttinen and the Vitriini series (for Iittala), and the Socks Rolled Down (for Marimekko) glass products have found their way into homes internationally.
For nearly three decades Anu has uncompromisingly dedicated her time and effort to different glassmaking techniques and to understanding the inspiring yet difficult nature of this material. She holds dear the process of making her works by hand herself, and this material-oriented premise results in dynamically clean forms, in recognizably bold technicolours and a strong presence of contrast. Anu gets excited, surprised and re-newed within the colours, textures, structures, systems, messages and signs of a man-made environment. Her latest sculptural collections emphasize elements of risk-taking, unpredictability and new materials paired with glass.
