Sami Havia

b. 1982, Säkylä, Finland; Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland

When Sami Havia begins a new painting or drawing, he sets the basis for a color palette and then improvises. Without further planning or design, he takes the colors and starts drawing forms and playing with shapes. Whether on paper or canvas, he draws - even when he paints.  Brushes, color pencils, acrylics, oil paint, pastels, and sticks.  Havia’s aesthetic is lush, frisky, and chaotic, but also organically organized. His works are dynamic, with each supporting element on a mission to harmonize. He does not work with themes, but with shapes, forms, movement, and growth. He’s drawn to soft and gentle things: to beauty, but also to the grotesque.  As each work evolves, there remains both a conscious control, and a compelling need to lose control.

Sami Havia graduated with an MA from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions at cultural institutions across Scandinavia, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (Helsinki, 2020), the Exhibition Laboratory at Uniarts Helsinki (2018), the Jyväskylä Art Museum (Jyväskylä, Finland, 2017), Fullersta Gård Art Gallery (Huddinge, Sweden, 2016), Lapinlahti Lähde (Helsinki, 2016), the Hämeenlinna Art Museum (Hämeenlinna, Finland, 2016), the Salo Art Museum (Salo, Finland, 2015), The Aine Art Museum (Tornio, Finland, 2015) and Pyhäniemi Manor (Hollola, Finland, 2015).  The artist has been subject to multiple solo exhibitions in Helsinki, including shows as Gallery Halmetoja, ARTag Gallery, tm•gallery, Korjaamo Gallery, Gallery FAFA, and Myymälä2 Gallery, and was included in his first North American group exhibition at Massey Klein Gallery in New York City in 2020. The artist and his works have been featured in numerous print and online publications, such as Around Journal, EDIT, Chicago Reader, AS|MAG, and VICE. Havia’s paintings are drawings have been placed in prestigious private and public collections internationally, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Finnish State Art Deposit Collection, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Galerie Anhava collection, the Hämeenlinna Art Museum, the Vantaa Art Museum, the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts collection, the Keva collection, and the Seppo Fränti collection, to name a few.