Karoliina Hellberg

Karoliina Hellberg

Karoliina Hellberg (b. 1987) lives and works in Helsinki.

Hellberg works across painting and drawing, guided by a sustained fascination with space and spatiality. Her compositions often blur the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, allowing indoor and outdoor realms to merge.

Blending observed reality with imagination, her paintings are rich with opulent detail, recalling aesthetic styles from past eras. Recurring motifs include gardens, courtyards, and fountains.

Human figures are largely absent, yet small, fleeting details occasionally hint at traces of once-present life. Multiple temporal layers overlap within these scenes, interweaving memories, emotions, and secrets. Hellberg describes her approach as an exploration of aesthetic ghosts.

Exhibition Freshly Painted 14.5.–30.8.2026

The canvas is filled with lilac-colored lilac blossoms and green leaves. In a few spots in the center of the painting, a dark blue night sky peeks through. In the upper right corner is a splash of red, an accent color.

Nightly Lilacs (Raatihuoneenkatu), 2026. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 27 x 27 cm. Image: Jussi Tiainen. Courtesy Galerie Anhava.