Viljami Heinonen

Serlachius Headquarters

13.09.2025

—30.08.2026

Expressiivisessä, voimakkaan värisessä teoskuvassa on keltaiseen sadetakkiin pukeutunut hahmo kyyryssä maassa.

Somewhere in Between

ExhibitionViljami Heinonen’s new paintings take the viewer to a deserted urban milieu, where people encounter themselves and others who have been battered by life.

Viljami Heinonen is known for his expressive painting, which makes you feel almost breathless when you look at it. In his new paintings, he is inspired by desolating landscapes and abandoned places. As is typical of the artist, nature is also strongly present in the works. 

The exhibition mainly consists of Heinonen’s latest paintings, made between 2023 and 2025, on the theme of everyday dystopia. The works deal with the conflicting feelings of the human mind as well as the brutality and injustice of life. Somewhere in Between is Viljami Heinonen’s first extensive museum exhibition. The curator of the exhibition is Eeva Ilveskoski.

Viljami Heinonen. Photo: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva
Viljami Heinonen. Photo: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva

Visual artist Viljami Heinonen

Viljami Heinonen (b. 1986) studied at the Kankaanpää Art School from 2008 to 2012, from where he spent a year as an exchange student at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Slovenia. He graduated as a visual artist in 2012.

Heinonen has had numerous solo exhibitions, mainly in galleries in Turku and Helsinki, and he has also participated in many group exhibitions. Heinonen’s works can be found in significant public and private art collections, including the collections of the Helsinki Art Museum, the Saastamoinen Foundation and the State Art Commission. In early 2025, the artist was awarded the Marcus Collin Memorial Fund’s Prize for Painting. 

During his career as a painter, the artist, who lives in Vesilahti, near the city of Tampere, has depicted the horror images of the future with different approaches. His early work included violent scenes, set in abandoned places where almost all life had disappeared.

Heinonen became known for his paintings in which wild animals invaded abandoned human dwellings. In his latest works, the artist has painted images depicting the contradictory feelings of everyday life. The artist feels that his works have a strong emotional charge that he wants to convey to the viewer. Paintings can offer comfort and strength amidst everyday emotional turmoil.

Main image: Viljami Heinonen, Incubation, detail, 2024, oil on canvas. Photo: Serlachius, Sampo Linkoneva.