Minjee Hwang Kim (born in 1991) draws herself not to be seen, but to be understood. Based in Helsinki, the Korean-born artist uses coloured pencils to craft self-portraits that are both deeply personal and universally resonant. Kim’s art invites viewers into a space where cultural heritage and emotional nuance intertwine.
“I plate up Minjee seasoned with a dash of violence,” she writes, “leaving out any positive or affirming experiences that might come with my racial identity.”
Elina Brotherus
Elina Brotherus: Piscine (Transat), 2018
Elina Brotherus (born in 1972) is one of Finland’s most recognised contemporary artists. Her honest, unassuming photographs explore the relationship between people and their surroundings. The history and practice of art often play a role in her work, such as in the Artists at Work -series, in which she is photographed while being painted by other artists.
“Piscine (Transat) was shot outside Paris in a house designed by Alvar Aalto, the Maison Louis Carré, which I consider one of Aalto’s finest works.”
Helene Schjerfbeck
Helene Schjerfbeck: Self-Portrait, en face I, 1945
“I’ve seen people exit her exhibition in complete silence, even in tears,” says Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff, director of the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki.
Schjerfbeck (1862–1946), a celebrated modernist painter, is the first Finnish artist to land a solo exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, 5 December 2025–4 April 2026).
One of the main draws is the artist’s powerful self-portraits, which span her career from an up-and-coming young painter to an old woman coming to terms with death.
Schjerfbeck’s self-portraits are anti-selfies of sorts, von Bonsdorff says. In the constant flood of selfies on social media, artists’ self-portraits ask us to stop and really look.
“We are fascinated by self-portraits because they are more charged with meaning than, say, landscapes,” von Bonsdorff says. “They invite us to think about what the artist was thinking about while making the piece.”
Text: Ninni Lehtniemi, ThisisFINLAND Magazine
