Mirella Salo

Sun 13.9.2026

When creating these works, I have been interested in continuity how a familiar shape or subject changes from one piece to the next, and how a painting can reveal the thought process that occurs while working. The works refer to the black dots of dice, dominoes, games, and the logic within them, but in the process, they transform into their own systems and continuities that connect to the evolution of previous works and personal memories. The works change and progress along their own paths, even if their starting point is something familiar.

Mirella Salo (b. 1995, Nastola) lives and works in Helsinki. Her experimental and playful practice focuses on the relationship between the representational and the abstract. Salo explores how familiar things can be understood and seen differently. Each artwork grows from the previous one, building new relationships and making the process of painting and thinking visible on the canvas. Working mainly with handmade oil sticks, Salo examines how recurring shapes, colors, and materials change their meaning through repetition, variation in scale, and simplification.

Salo’s works were most recently exhibited in 2026 at the Nuoret exhibition in Helsinki Kunsthalle, at Lokal Gallery in Billnäs, at Kuva/Tila Gallery in the Kuvan Kevät exhibition, and in the group exhibition A Borrowed Room in Hong Kong. In 2025, her works were shown at Galerie Anhava, the Ateneum Art Museum, and Marcy home gallery. Salo is currently completing her master’s studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki.

https://www.mirellasalo.com

©salomirella

ARTWORK

Images of the works: Paavo Lehtonen