Pasta a la Prima
2025 / Oil painting on panel
I painted Pasta a la Prima in a single sitting, using the alla prima approach (painting in a single sitting) and limiting myself to the Zorn palette.
Working this way felt like a reset. After a year of running Brasserie Onni, most of my attention had been on the restaurant, my design work, and the day-to-day work of keeping everything moving. Painting had been pushed aside. This piece was a way back into the practice.
The constraints helped. A restricted palette, wet paint on a simple panel, and no room for endless corrections. It forced me to stop chasing a perfect image and instead respond to what was happening on the surface: the warmth of a plate of pasta, the gesture of grating cheese, the small moments that make up a service.
Print Collection / Brasserie Onni
2025 / Works by Samuel Lehto
This collection was created for Brasserie Onni as a visual companion to the restaurant — six prints that reflect the inner shifts, doubts, and small moments of clarity that shaped the journey toward opening the space. Some pieces were made years earlier, others during the build, but together they form a quiet map of the emotions behind the project.
The works hang in the restaurant and are available as limited prints during the Christmas market.
50% of all profits from this collection are donated to the Sudanese Red Crescent Society to support emergency relief and humanitarian aid in Sudan.
