Milla Aska

Milla Aska (b. 1993) lives and works in Helsinki.

Aska’s paintings – which at first glance appear abstract – conceal suggestive silhouettes of human figures and fleeting contours of plants and landscapes. Ultimately, however, these forms remain elusive and ambiguous, resisting clear definition.

Aska works with oil paint and coloured pencil, building her surfaces slowly and meticulously through the accumulation of translucent layers of colour. This process creates a vivid sense of movement and subtle tonal variation. Her practice foregrounds the physicality of painting and explores embodied experience in dialogue with the material.

A recurring hallmark of Aska’s work is her attention to moments of transition and liminality, as she navigates thresholds between consciousness and unconsciousness, the familiar and the unfamiliar. The uncertainty and sensitivity intrinsic to the creative process remain visible on the canvas. Aska often selects titles that underscore the lingering quality of her forms and motifs. As the artist describes: “The painted surface and the forms concealed within it invoke revelation, obscurity, the eye’s gradual adaptation to change, and transitions between liminal states.”

Exhibition Freshly Painted 14.5.–30.8.2026