ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Penni Vasama is a Helsinki/Finnish-born artist, based in Paris. Vasama is a doctoral candidate in art, at the University of Lapland. She holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the University for the Creative Arts, UK, and a Bachelor's degree in Theoretical Philosophy from Helsinki University. Vasama's paintings have been exhibited in Finland, Switzerland, and France, and are held in private collections across Europe and the UK.
Vasama’s work is experimental and rooted in large-scale, abstract-leaning expressive painting. She creates layers of mixed mediums , with her material explorations ranging from self-made natural paints to fine arts materials, to form a unique, tangible sense of texture. Vasama’s canvases are openly emotive, and redefine the perception of vulnerability through the transmission of energy and raw power. She combines her expressive work with intellectual research. Her projects have processed existential terror, the communivcative abilities of abtract art, experiences of homelessness, with her current research challenging conventional gendered subject-object relationships in fine arts.
Vasama, briefly a professional snowboarder, has in the past worked also as a writer, film director and cinematographer, and was a part of the experimental extreme sports journalism and documentary filmmaking, of the millenium era.
UPCOMING: Solo exhibition at Arcticum, Gallery Valo, Rovaniemi, Finland, fall 2027.
Selections from CV:
Solo Exhibitions
2025. Vaaleanpunainen Pilleri (Rose-coloured Pill), mixed medium paintings and drawings, Galleria Uusi Kipinä (GUK), Lahti, Finland
2024. Corridor gallery, as invited artist at Polhem Finland showroom, Helsinki, Finland
2022 Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart. Mixed medium paintings and site-specific murals, Gallery Aloïse, Basel, Switzerland
2021. Muotokuvia, mixed medium paintings, Galleria Albert IX, Helsinki, Finland
Collective Exhibitions
2023 Mixed medium paintings, Penni Pelkää Käärmeitä, trio Salon Exhibition with artists: Hanna-Kaisa Korolainen, and Hanna Galtat in a private residence, Helsinki, Finland
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Finnish Painters Union x Skanno, at Skanno design showroom, Helsinki, Finland
2022 I Swear I Saw This, master of Fine Arts graduation exhibition, Online
2021 Merçi pour les roses, merçi pour les epines, by curators Quand Les Fleurs Nous Sauvent, at Galerie Joseph, Paris, France
2021 Spring Salon, Kosminen Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
2020 Unraveling, Marcy Home Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
press:
Newspaper article of exhibition summer 2025: https://www.ess.fi/paikalliset/8665079
Collector feature including my artwork: Art pod 2024: https://isabellachydenius.com/arif-samaletdin
and 2023 Gloria magazine: https://www.gloria.fi/artikkeli/sisusta/arif-samaletdinin-terassi-harvinaisuus-helsingin-keskustassa-katutasossa-keskella
magazine article on me 2021: https://www.gloria.fi/artikkeli/ihmiset/penni-vasamaa-harmittaa-jos-vaate-menee-pilalle-vuosikymmenessa-kuvataiteilijan
Photo copyright Oona Österman