Juulia Kääriä

I’m a visual artist based in Jyväskylä, Finland. I work across painting, ceramics, light field displays, textiles, digital art and interactive projection. My formal training is in animation and public art; the rest I taught myself. I make my own paints and inks from sustainable, non-toxic and archival materials.

My work often shows light from within, or light that comes from somewhere you can’t quite see, in things that give themselves away slowly. I want a piece to keep something back, so there’s still more to find the tenth time you’re near it.

Karelian roots and käzipaikku

My maternal roots are Karelian. I studied under Julia Salminen, a käzipaikku (Finnish: käspaikka) master from Mančinsuari (Finnish: Mantsinsaari), my grandmother’s native island, learning traditional Karelian double-running stitch embroidery. That current runs under most of what I make, even in pieces where it never rises to the surface. In one interactive work, käzipaikku patterns appear and fade across a wall wherever a viewer’s hand passes, there one moment and gone the next.

Art and Technology

In 2019 I made the visuals and most of the code for Siltojen alta tulevaisuuden ihmiselle, a VR piece for the Helsinki City Museum directed by Hanna Västinsalo. It became the first, and so far the only, Finnish work selected for the Venice Biennale’s VR programme. Oodin Äidit followed at Helsinki’s Oodi library, the first piece in that space to respond to touch. In 2021 Yhdessä joined a painted mural to an augmented reality layer at Concreate Urban Art Festival.

My first professional solo exhibition, Yhtehsulavundu, opened at Galleria Becker in Jyväskylä in June 2026. My visual work has been shown at the Sodankylä Midnight Sun Film Festival, and internationally in Italy, Japan, Canada, Taiwan, Estonia, Belgium and the United States. I have received support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Taike, AVEK and Karjalan Sivistysseura. I live and work at Jyväskylän Taiteilijatalot, an artist community, with my family.