Marika Mäkelä b. 1947

Born in Oulu, Finland 1947 I Lives and works in Helsinki

In a career now spanning six decades, Marika Mäkelä has made her mark as an unflinchingly bold and ever-surprising painter. Her radically evolving technique bears witness to her daring spirit of creative renewal. Recently, she has taken up woodworking tools alongside her paintbrush and exchanged the canvas for heavy wooden panels. Her thickly daubed layers of paint have an ornamental three-dimensionality that verges upon sculpture. Her works push boundaries, compelling us to reflect on the boundary between painting and sculpture. Typically, for Mäkelä, her brushwork is imbued with intensity, deriving its vitality from the synergy ignited between the buoyant visual vocabulary and the heaviness of the wood.

Marika Mäkelä’s artistic breakthrough occurred during the neo-expressionistic wave in the 1980s. Mäkelä is known for her vivid and profound use of colors and works constructed with numerous, thick layers of paint and almost three-dimensional brush strokes. Mäkelä was awarded the State Art Committee State Prize in 1974 and The Finnish Cultural Fund’s Prize in 1994. Her works have been displayed in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, including Stockholm, Paris, Cologne, and Copenhagen. In 2024, Marika Mäkelä received the honorary title of Professor from the President of Finland.

Galerie Forsblom has been representing Marika Mäkelä since 2018.