Hanami - Petals of Happiness | Maaria Märkälä

Hanami - Petals of Happiness

I had a Hanami-themed exhibition at Auran Gallery in Turku 2025. For this exhibition I painted my dauhter Lilja lying down under the cherry trees becauce of using drugs, Alfa-PVP (Sleeping Beauty). She has now gotten up and been sober since October 2025. I hope she stays on her feet. This was a really terrible phase in my life too, even though the drug problem was hers. I needed to escape in my thoughts as far away as possible to survive - There was nothing else to do but escape to paint so beautiful paintings as I could. Becauce of the situation I painted too much and worked too hard (but that's another story). Two of these Hanami-themed paintings ( Sleeping beauty and Happy Petals) were also in "Pinkkiä" group exhibition at Galleria Aarni 2026.