Pauliina Mäkelä

Pauliina Mäkelä (b. 1980) works in a multidisciplinary manner with drawing and analog kinetic art. Mäkelä's detailed, rich pencil drawings often express an imaginative fusion of the inner and outer worlds – the living and the dreamlike. Her artistic work deals with areas of human uncertainty as well as the cyclical and momentary nature of life. The surreal tone of Mäkelä's work is at once enchanting and deceptive, recognizable and enigmatic, corporeal and ghostly, reaching beyond words.

Pauliina Mäkelä lives and works in Turku. She graduated from the Lahti Institute of Design in 2005 and has since been awarded the Finnish Illustrator of the Year award in 2021 and in the World Illustration Awards 2023. Mäkelä's first major solo exhibition at an art museum, Pneuma, was on display at the Lahti Museum of Visual Arts Malva from in 2024–2025. In addition, her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, most recently at the Turku Art Hall (2025), Fais-Le Toi-Même gallery in Paris (2025), the Poikilo Museum in Kouvola (2024), the Tampere Artists' Association's gallery Mältinranta (2023), and the K.H. Renlund Museum in Kokkola, Finland (2022). Mäkelä's works are included in several private collections.