CV
Kaija Hinkula
Finland
kaijah (@) gmail.com
NOW
2025 Resident, ISCP, New York, US, supported by Helsinki Art Academy & Saastamoinen Foundation
SOLO EXHIBITIONS ( SELECTED )
2024 Gardener, Turku Art Hall FI
2023 Stargazer, Ham Gallery, Helsinki Art Museum FI
2023 Boulder Star, Pragovka Gallery, Praque CZ
2023 CORNER, Woikka Contemporary FI
2022 Play, Oulu Art Museum FI
2021 Fire Hose 50 Bar, Forum Box, Helsinki FI
2019 Builder, Gallery Harmaja, Oulu FI
2018 Matter, Huuto Gallery, Helsinki FI
2016 Indian Express, TM Gallery, Helsinki FI
2015 Journey, Gallery Katariina, Helsinki FI
2015 Journey, KOUTA Gallery, Art Museum Poikilo, Kouvola FI
2014 The Butterfly Effect, Gallery Mältinranta, Studio, Tampere FI
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)
2024 Material World, Monumentaal Gallery, Tarto Art House, EE
2024 House Party!, SIC, Helsinki FI
2024 Dreams of Abyss, Galleri Knipsu, Bergen NO
2024 Terder Ties, Kunstraum T/abor, Wien AT
2023 Under Conditions, KCCC, Klaipeda LT
2023 Syyssalonki, TM Gallery, Helsinki FI
2023 On Furlough – My Paracosmic Playdate Reality Show, Festung Hohensalzburg, Salzburg AT
2022 Zoning, SIC, Helsinki FI
2022 Serlachius Residency, Mänttä FI
2022 PADA Gallery, Lisbon PT
2022 Pori Biennale, Visitors, Helsinki FI
2021-2022 Nordisk Salong, Helsingborg SE
2021 Supermarket Art Fair, TM Galleria, Stockholm SE
2021 International festival of Manuports, Kohta Art Hall, Helsinki FI
2020 Kuvan Kevät, MA Degree Show of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki FI
2019 Karuselli, Tm Gallery, Helsinki FI
2019 Finnish Painters` Union 90 years, Art Museum of Lappeenranta FI
2019 Finnish Painters`union 90 years, Galleria 5 FI
2018 Kerronta, Art Center Haihara, Tampere FI
2018 Home called Krimi, art in to-be-demolished house, Art Center Krimi, Imatra FI
2017 Kyllä, Art Museum of Riihimäki FI
2017 Katajainen Kansa, art in to-be-demolished house, Mäntyharju FI
2017 Decadence, Gallery Krimi FI
2016 ARS Kärsämäki FI
2016 Pohjaveed, Monumentaalgalerie, Tartu Kunstimaja EE
2016 Works on Paper, DLUL, Ljubljana SI
2016 5000m2, art in to-be-demolished house, Lappeenranta FI
2015 Exhale, Galerie Pleiku, Berlin, Germany (Hinkula & Peräkylä) DE
2015 Matka, Art Museum of Imatra FI
2014 The snowball Effect II, biennal of Northern Finland, Art Museum of Rovaniemi FI
2014 Growth, The Art Of Basware – competition for young artists, Music center, Helsinki FI
2014 Itää, Gallery Rantakasarmi, Helsinki FI
2013 Connections, The Art of Basware- competition for young artists, Helsinki Music Center, Helsinki FI
2013 ArSboretum13 – “Temporary happiness ja muita tarinoita”, Kemiö FI
2013 Inner Landscapes, Tartu Kunstimaja, Tartu EE
2012 Second Ground, Loov Gallery, Tallinn (Hinkula & Peräkylä) EE
2012 The Snowball Effect, Biennal of Northern Finland, Art Museum of Oulu FI
2012 Billnäs Young Artists, Billnäs FI
2011 Art Museum of O.Jauhiainen, Kiiminki FI
2009 Riskiryhmä, The Cable Factory, Helsinki FI
2008 Staalkaart, Amersfoort NL
2008 Riskiryhmä, Art Museum of Imatra FI
EDUCATION
2021 Master of Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki
2008 South Carelia University of Applied Sciences, visual artist
2006 University of Granada, Fine Arts, Spain
2003–2004 Liminka Art School
WORK IN COLLECTIONS
HAM Helsinki Art Museum
The Collection of Finnish State Art Commision
HUS Art Collection
Art Museum of Oulu
Finnish Art Society, annual art lottery 2018, 2024
City of Amersfoort, Netherlands
Helia Foundation
SEK
Art Center Salmela
City of Mäntyharju
Osuuskauppa Suur-Savo
Vyborg´s artist Studio
Billnäs Ruukki
Saskiat Oulu
Pique Nique Helsinki
GRANTS / STIPENDS / PRIZES
Finnish Cultural Foundation
Arts Council of Finland
Finnish Art Society
Kordelin Foundation
Helsinki Art Academy
VISEK
Art Council of Pohjois-Pohjanmaa & Kainuu
Frame
City of Oulu
Saskiat Oulu
Oulu Valistustalo
City of Imatra
Osuuskauppa Suur-Savo
RESIDENCIES
2022 Serlachius Residency, Finland
2022 PADA Sudios, Portugal
2016 Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
2013 Kemijärvi, Finland
2012 Kochi, India
2010 Vyborg, Russia
2010 Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain
2008 Kunstenaarslogies, Amersfoort, Netherlands
PUBLIC WORKS
Oulu City Hall, 2024
Kummeli, public sculpture, Oulu, 2022
OTHER
2022 OuluDanceHack22, multidiciplinary artists group by Taikabox, Oulu, FI
2019 Bones of Amelia, Valvegallery , Oulu (multdiciplinary installaton/performance)
2016 Ocean, light/paintng installatons, Lumo Light festval, Oulu, with Mika Kiviniemi
MEMBERSHIPS
Forum Box
Art Assosiation of Oulu
Finish painter`s union
Mehiläispesä Ry
POSITION OF TRUST
Board of Finnish Painters Union 2020-2021
Representatives of the Artists’ Association of Finland 2019-2020, 2021-2022
Chairman of Art assosiation of Oulu 2015–2016
Board of Art assosiation of Oulu 2010–2012
Vice-Chairman of Art assosiation of Oulu 2012
BIO
Kaija Hinkula is a Finnish contemporary artist whose work delves into themes of utopia, fantasy, and the construction of future narratives. Hinkula’s exploration of malleable geometry as a symbol of hope, potential, and the imagining of new worlds is central to her recent work. Operating within the realm of expanded painting, she is creating minimastistic spatial experiences that merge elements of painting, sculpture, and time-based media. Her playfull and versatile body of work includes sculptural paintings, site-specific installations, and video performances.
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki 2021, Hinkula holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts. She has held solo exhibitions at venues such as Pragovka in Prague, the HAM Gallery at the Helsinki Art Museum, Forum Box, and the Oulu Art Museum. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions, including the Pori Biennale in Helsinki, SIC and Knipsu Fight Cage in Norway. She was awarded the Fine Arts Academy of Finland Foundation Prize 2025. Currently she is a resident at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, supported by the Helsinki Art Academy and the Saastamoinen Foundation.
“The sculptural and architectural expressions of Hinkula’s practice act as spatial extensions of the artist’s investigation into the medium of painting. Precisely executed, Hinkula creates fantastically uncanny scenes that are inhabited by abstract yet humorous characters. There is a specific colour palette applied to each presentation of her work, which creates a stage-like scene, where her works as protagonists dominate. In her most recent practice, she investigates the theme of the garden, a vision and breeding ground for new ideas and utopias. The garden symbolises hope, the imagining of a new world, full of potential and possibilities in which her expanded paintings, sculptures and ready-mades celebrate nature’s order and chaos, appearance and disappearance as well as blossoming and decay, even joy and horror.” – Mamie Beth Cary (the Director of von Bartha in Copenhagen DK) and Claire Mary Anne Gould ( A Chief Curator in Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg DK)
“Hinkula blends different worlds together in uninhibited ways creating playfull fantasies, so the severity or restraint often linked to minimalism is not present here. Readymade and handmade as well as two-dimensional and three-dimensional are both contradictions that the artist combines together one work at a time. This time, spatiality is present inside the paintings, where audience can peek into, thanks to the holes cut in the surface. On one hand, Hinkula’s works bring to mind parallels to cubistic ideas or Brazilian concretism of the 1910s, but they also seem to fit well in this time and place while also reaching towards the future sci-fi aesthetics.
When the artist asks if it would be possible to imagine alternative realities and word orders, the answer is yes. And she proves this through her works and exhibitions, showing how art is always a form or dissidence and rethinking. Hinkula takes her audience into an experience that reveals surprising directions and views. She does not offer a static style or expression, but rather shows the fantasty-like views born in her studio. Hinkula’s workspace does not have a chair, because the artist never remains still and is always in motion. The same applies to her art, described as ‘malleable geometry’ or a ‘place between realities’. Stargazer à la Kaija Hinkula takes the viewer to galaxies far, far away, simply by sight. This, if anything, is fantastic minimalism.” – Ph.D. Juha-Heikki Tihinen
“The paintings and installations of Kaija Hinkula are constructed by compiling everyday industrial material and objects in vivid and intense colors. The visual landscape, or perhaps cityscape, she presents is surprising, joyous, and triggers our imagination. Experiencing Hinkula’s sculptural environment like spatial and temporal painting expands and challenges our perception of our regular environment while making us think about what structural globalization does to the individual. The work reflects on our reality, and our perception of our society and how we operate in it.” – Power Ekroth