Strömfors Art Gallery
Housed in the historic Talli building, Strömfors Art invites you to explore the visual arts amidst the idyllic setting of the Strömfors ironworks. Three exhibition spaces feature rotating displays of works by artists from both the local area and across Finland.
In the summer of 2026, the gallery will host four exhibition cycles. Exhibitions change approximately every month, so Strömfors Art offers something new to see even for visitors who come more than once during the summer. Free admission makes the gallery an easily accessible cultural destination for art lovers, summer visitors, and tourists on a day trip to the Strömfors ironworks.
Art Exhibitions and Opening Hours for Summer 2026
Guided tours
1. Exhibition tour May 8 – June 3.
2. Exhibition tour June 5 – July 1.
3. Exhibition tour July 3 – July 29.
4. Exhibition tour July 31 – August 30.
Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Free admission.
Note: The gallery is closed during exhibition changes June 4, July 2, and July 30
The fourth exhibition tour of the summer, July 31–August 30
LOBBY GALLERY - Carina Chela: "Living Rooms"
Carina Chela lives and works as a visual artist in Helsinki. Her work lies at the intersection of abstract and figurative art. It combines bold graphic forms, minimalist composition, and a vibrant color palette that radiates warmth. She balances Nordic expression with tropical colors and builds tension in her works through texture, contrast, and movement.
Carina works with acrylic paints, and her works are in private collections throughout Europe and the Americas. She has published collections of poetry in Venezuela and Spain. This common thread continues to run quietly through her paintings and is evident in their rhythm and visual language.
Living Rooms
"Living Rooms" explores the quiet need to bring nature indoors—not merely as decoration, but as a way to maintain a connection to the living world: a constant reminder of growth, time, and fragility. Through conceptual painting, Carina Chela transforms plants, flowers, and everyday elements into expressions of presence, stillness, and interior space. In these works, nature acts as a subtle companion within controlled spaces, bringing with it softness, unpredictability, and a dialogue between the organic and the man-made. The works navigate the tension between permanence and transience, as well as freedom and constraint, revealing a deeper human longing for slowness, care, and connection.
GALLERY V2 - Tero Porthan and Jouni Jokivirta: "From the Underworld to the Earth"
The exhibition *From the Underworld to the Earth* explores, through the work of two artists, the contrasting themes of Finnish mythology: darkness and light, life and death, monsters and beauty.
In Tero Porthan’s works, the viewer journeys from the realm of the sun and moon through a magical forest to Tuonela, to the realm of the gods of death. Jouni Jokivirta depicts mythological beauty and symbolism in the spirit of classical painting—set within distinctive frames. Together, the exhibition offers visitors a multifaceted experience of styles in the visual arts and the stories of Finnish mythology.
Tero Porthan
Tero Porthan is a Finnish artist who illustrates mythology and folklore based on ancient poems and spells. In his art, the gods of nature and death, magical animals, the spirits of the dead, and supernatural beings come to life. Tero’s art has been featured in international exhibitions (Milan, Paris, Madrid) as well asin numerousart books and magazines. Together with author Tiina Porthan, he publishesbooks on mythology with the goal of making our heritage known around the world.
“My inspiration comes from the fascinating Finnish mythology, whose characters offer an endless treasure trove for an artist. These ancient myths have been passed down orally from generation to generation, and through my art, I strive to show that these myths still speak to us today. I want to bring these ancient, mysterious beings to life and depict them in my paintings to convey their power. My art explores dark themes as I depict the Underworld and the gods of death, but it also contains humor and light.”
Jouni Jokivirta
Jouni Jokivirta is a painter and an interpreter of Finnish mythology who designs his paintings to fit their frames. This allows him to create unique works of art.
Jokivirta uses acrylic painting techniques, enhanced with ink brushstrokes to create a comic-book-like effect. By day, he is an engineer who draws machines and diagrams; this is reflected in his art through an emphasis on composition—specifically, how the viewer’s gaze moves through the various details of a painting. Syntheticism and Symbolism are among his major areas of interest in visual art.
VINTTIGALLERIA: The Stratum Collective’s Group Exhibition “Layers – Strata”
The Stratum Collective’s “LAYERS – STRATA” exhibition introduces the public to the cold-wax oil painting technique, which is rarely seen in Finland. This is Finland’s first master class graduation exhibition dedicated to cold-wax oil painting. The exhibition features works by eight artists from
and their teacher, painter Outi Hägg, Ph.D. Hägg has studied cold-wax oil painting for ten years under the guidance of the technique’s developers, internationally renowned artists Rebecca Crowell and Jerry McLaughlin, and has been teaching the technique since 2022. Hägg is, to the best of our knowledge, the only teacher of this technique in Finland.
The Master Class 2026, organized by the Espoo Art Association in the spring of 2026, marks the culmination of the artists’ years of in-depth study of this unique technique. The works in the exhibition highlight the many dimensions of this painting technique through the artists’ individual expressions. The painting technique is versatile, and the exhibition also features reliefs by one of the artists. The artists featured in the exhibition are Catarina Honkaharju, Outi Hägg, Marjatta Järvi, Heli Mäkitalo, Marika Palomäki, Mervi Repo, Pauliina Ruokokoski, Marja Saarikoski
, and Aino Tiihonen.
The cold-wax oil painting technique is based on a mixture of cold-wax medium and oil paint, which allows for rich texture and layering without heating the wax. Cold-wax oil painting is, by its nature, a process-oriented form of painting in which the history of
is built up layer by layer. Later, the layers are brought out using various techniques. A key aspect of the technique is learning to take advantage of different degrees of dryness. Cold-wax oil painting is meditative, slow-paced, and full of surprises. The ongoing dialogue with the work-in-progress keeps the process engaging and fosters a deep connection between the artist and the artwork.
