Jósefina Alanko
Jósefina Alanko is a visual artist working across painting, ceramics, textiles, and installation. Her work explores absence and loss through material, memory, and the fragmented traces of bodies and histories. Rooted in her Finnish-Karelian heritage and its mythic and oral traditions, her practice investigates how inherited memories—both conscious and unconscious—continue to shape the present through material and form.
Alanko focuses material expression like linen, wool, clay, sand, latex, and rope. She creates hybrid forms that sit between surface and object. Her work develops through repetition and variation, building a serial visual language shaped by process and praxis.
Central to her practice are soft, body-referential structures—sewn protrusions, pockets, and cocoon-like vessels. These forms create a tension between the visible and the invisible, containment and exposure, suggesting bodies and interior spaces that remain only partially revealed. Her work approaches the body not as a fixed entity, but as a porous and unstable site shaped by transformation, protection, and fragility.
Alanko is based between Finland and Central Europe.
In 2026, Alanko is developing a new body of work with the support of the Karelian Culture Foundation (Joensuu, Finland) part of which is being realized during her residency at Strabag Art x Fassfabrik Studios in Vienna, Austria.
Contact : alanko.josefina@outlook.com
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
JÓSEFINA ALANKO 