Nio’s choice of theme and technique stems from her profound interest in painting and its potential. She is constantly searching for ever-new perspectives, which she explores in-depth for a few years before moving on to her next area of interest. Everything ultimately flows in a cycle: in an unexpected moment of self-discovery, she recently found herself revisiting the themes of her graduate exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts. Some specific themes and motifs insist upon bursting through, as if by themselves, and Nio allows them to bubble up as they will.
Composition and cropping are essential parts of Nio’s recent works. Her new paintings are, as it were, tightly cropped portraits that appear to focus on something secondary. The face is cropped out of the frame, drawing our attention to minor, irrelevant-seeming details. These minutiae may seem insignificant at first, but the more attention we pay them, the bigger they become.
Nio graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2010 and was awarded the Finnish Art Society’s Ducat Prize the same year. In 2021 she completed Dream Images, a commissioned artwork for the new Finnoo subway station. Last year, she and Kalle Nio completed a multidisciplinary piece for the Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA. In addition, her work is represented in many of Finland’s most important public art collections, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Saastamoinen Foundation Collection, and the Sara Hildén Art Museum.
