Jósefina Alanko

Jósefina Alanko is a visual artist working across painting, ceramics, textile, and installation. Her practice explores memory, embodiment, and transformation through material processes rooted in Finnish-Karelian heritage and its mythic and oral traditions.

Working with linen, wool, clay, sand, latex, and rope, she creates hybrid forms that sit between surface and object, painting and sculpture. Her work develops through repetition and variation, building a serial visual language shaped by process rather than narrative.

Central to Alanko’s practice are soft, body-referential structures and sewn protrusions that function as pockets, membranes, or cocoon-like vessels. These elements introduce tension between containment and exposure, suggesting interior spaces that remain partially concealed. Her work engages the body not as a fixed entity, but as a porous, unstable site shaped by transformation, protection, and fragility.

Alanko is based between Finland and Central Europe.

Contact : alanko.josefina@outlook.com

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Selected exhibitions :

2026 – Solo show ”Linen Skin / Pellavaiho”, Kunsthalle Porvoo, Porvoo

2025 – Group show ”Untitled” at UFO Art Gallery, Kraków
2024/25 – Solo show ”Blue Moth” at UFO Art Gallery, Kraków

2024 – Group Show ”Rubato” at Silvia Steinek Galerie, Vienna
2024 – Solo show ”Spirit Anatomy” Curated by Goschka Gawlik at BWA Ostrowiec, Ostrowiec
2024 – Solo presentation at SPARK Art Fair, Vienna
2024 – Group Show at Jan Koniarek Gallery, ”RAUMPLAN” Curated by Vladimír Beskid, Trnava
2024 – Solo show ”Roots of Invisible Entities” at STRABAG Artlounge, Vienna

2023 – STRABAG Artaward International 2023, Nominated artist 2023, STRABAG Artlounge, Vienna

2022 – Solo show ”Deformation of Life” at Miejska Galeria Sztuki w Łodzi, Łódź
2022 – Group show ”Dark Spring” at Galleria Myymälä2, Helsinki

2021 – Solo show ”Eternal Ghosts” at Art Ikubator / The Art Factory, Łódź
2021 – FLASH3 Biennial, curated by Alexander Salvesen and Jere Suontausta, Suomenlinna / Helsinki
2021 – Group Show Spring Salon 21 curated by the Kosminen collective, Kosminen, Helsinki

2019 – Collaboration Show ”On Colors” with Agata Ciehomska at Galleria OFF, OFF Piotrkowska, Łódź

2018 – Solo Show ”Moniuszki” at Galleria Uusi Kipinä, Lahti
2018 – Group Show ”_Matriarc_h”, at ASP Łódź, Galleria Kobro, Łódź
2018 – ”The Art of Basware” Art Award, at Hotel Clarion, Helsinki
2018 – Group Show ”Päätös” at BFA Final Exhibition, Galleria Saskia, Raja-tila, Mältinranta, Tampere

2017 – Solo show ”Porin Saskiat Exhibition Prize 2017” at Galleria Poriginal, Pori

Education:
2014 – 2018 at Kankaanpää Art School, Satakunta University, Finland
2016 – 2017 at Universidad Europea Madrid UEM / Visual Arts, Architecture
2013 – 2014 at Lahden Kansanopisto, Visual Arts / Painting, Finland

Art Awards:
2023 – 1st prize, STRABAG Artaward International 2023, Vienna
2022 – 1st prize in the public art competition, Thohmajärvi
2018 – Nomination for The Art of Basware Art Award, Helsinki
2017 – Porin Saskiat Foundation, Exhibition Prize, at Galleria Poriginal, Pori

Residencies:
2025 – 2026 – Strabag Art x Fassfabric Studios, Vienna (2 years)
2022 – Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
2020 – The Finnish Artists’ Studio Foundation – Casa Finlandese, Grassina
2017 – The Hug Residence, Madrid

Publications / Catalogues:
2024 – SPIRIT ANATOMY by BWA Ostrowiec, text by Goschka Gawlik (PL)
2024 – Group show ”RAUMPLAN” at Jan Koniarek Gallery x Strabag Art Collection
2023, 2024 – STRABAG Artaward International (AT)
2022 – Solo show at Miejska Galeria Sztuki w Łodzi, Łódź (PL)
2021 – BODY Publication – (Limited edition of 30) by Round Lemon Collective (UK)

Grands
2026, Paulo Foundation, Finland
2026,2022, Karelian Culture Foundation, North-Karelia Finland
2026, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 – TAIKE, Arts Promotion Centre Finland
2023, 2022 Finnish Cultural Foundation, North-Karelia
2021 – Porin Saskiat Exhibition Stipend for Students