Solja Upola

Solja Upola (PhD, MA) is a watercolor artist originally from Lapland who currently lives and works in Helsinki.
She has a long artistic career behind her, with works dating back to the 1980s. Upola is a second-generation female visual artist, and in addition to formal academic art education, she has grown up immersed in art throughout her life. For over twenty years, Upola ran her own art gallery in Rovaniemi. Following her move to Helsinki, the gallery’s watercolor works were relocated to a home gallery that opened in autumn 2024 on Mariankatu in Kruununhaka.

Upola’s art can best be described as impressionistic watercolor painting depicting moments of silence spent in nature, moments in which the soul finds rest. The subjects of her watercolors are natural environments, rendered with simple and reduced brushstrokes that capture what is essential. Most of the paintings are created outdoors, directly in front of the subject. Regardless of the motif or setting, the works convey a sense of a paused moment in which the artist is alone with what she is portraying. Upola aims to capture not only the visual scene but also the silence, the sounds of nature, the feeling of wind, and the warmth of the sun. She describes the painting process as empowering and cleansing. The mind is freed from unnecessary restlessness and scattered thoughts, time seems to stand still, and only the present moment remains. It is this atmosphere that the impressionist captures with sensitive brushstrokes and transforms into a painting.

In 2020, Upola published the art book Veden vuosi [The Year of Water], which depicts the changing seasons along the Ounasjoki River near the Arctic Circle. The 64-page book features Solja Upola’s evocative portrayals of nature in the form of photographs and watercolor paintings, capturing different times of day.