15.1.—8.2.2026

Recently, my work has focused on the emotional landscapes of Eastern Finland. The starting points for my works are feelings of longing, transgenerational wounds and grief, as well as the layers in time and spaces, both physical and mental. Emotional landscapes accumulate in our time, longing is inherited. The past and the present, the visible and the invisible intertwine, creating new spaces. In my oil and tempera paintings, I have created a visual world in which I depict these emotional rooms and spaces, longings to be somewhere.

My works move through the landscapes of the region in Eastern Finland where I’m from, atmospheres where merging, memories, and contradictions between them take place. Certain elements recur frequently in my paintings, such as swans and plastic chairs. The swan has strong symbolic significance in old Karelian beliefs as well as in Finnish identity. According to a Karelian belief, the one who kills a swan will also soon die themselves. The plastic chair has become the symbol of modern nomadism in my visual language, representing a temporary need and impermanence. Strong female figures are highlighted in Karelian culture, and this is also reflected in my paintings.

The exhibition features my recent oil and tempera paintings, in which the core themes are the emotional wounds, grief and spiritual detachment of people in Eastern Finland, which often manifests as rootlessness and longing.

Olga Hyvönen (b. 1999) is a visual artist originally from the shores of Lake Saimaa, currently working in Helsinki. Hyvönen graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the LAB University of Applied Sciences in 2023. Hyvönen works primarily with oil painting, incorporating tempera. Recurring themes include a sense of not belonging, emotional memories of home, and roots/rootlessness. Through painting, Hyvönen explores the emotional landscapes, inner wounds and memories of Eastern Finland.