Lullaby

For the Lullaby paintings the artist, with the help of her family, collected sleep-inducing rosebay willowherbs, an abandoned bird's nest, feathers, a lizard tail and snake skin from the Finnish forests. Salonen burnt these materials into ashes. Using the ashes, pigments ground from mineral stones and rainwater, she painted on glass an image of a flask with a dragon resting inside on a bed of rosebay willowherbs.

The dragons, familiar from alchemical illustrations and combining reptile and bird features, represent the union of this and the otherworldly, the earthly and the heavenly, or the journey between them. The sleep-inducing medicinal plants act as similar travelling companions between wakefulness and sleep. These different dimensions are also embodied in the colour pigments used in the paintings.