INFO
SAARA HALMINEN they/them
Helsinki, Finland

Born 2003


inquiries:
saara.halminen@gmail.com

instagram


Halminen (b. 2003, Oulu) is a multimedia artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Currently studying painting in the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki, they work across various media, including installation, video, sculpting, 3D, and graphic art. Still mostly focusing on the long background in oil painting, their work is affected by the eyes of a painter.

Currently, Halminen is working with themes around queer worldbuilding, psychoanalysis and combining these two very broad perspectives in concepts of pleasure and art practice itself. Pleasure has been central to their thinking almost violently. Focusing on pleasure in daily life almost obsessively reveals liminalities and a demand for movement and constant transformation.


During the last year (2025), Halminen has been working as an artist and project manager in a long-term production for Oulu 2026 - European Capital of Culture. Halminen has been temporarily studying at the Academy of Fine Art Prague in 2025. Their works have been exhibited in Oulu and Helsinki, and they are currently working on their BA exhibition, taking place in August 2026.


CV
click to be saved, 2025
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Saara Halminen
click to be saved, 2025

oil on hardboard
0,6 m x 2,75 m Exhibited in Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki Majakka exhibition space.


Artwork explores the contemporary trend and thematics of Christianity and Catholicism in western art and internet in the 2020s. The painting is a spatial artwork based on the Majakka space. The windows in the space delimit the tower of Kallio Church, and the tones of the painting are from the insides of the Kallio Church tower. The shape comes from gothic church architecture, when lancet windows first got popularized. The window is narrow and round from the top with a pointed tip.


The work exploits trends popular among the z-generation with humor, merging together cliches like fringe knowledge or occultism with sacred imagery. Work is a part of meme format where angels, The Virgin Mary and lambs reflect innocence. The painting is inspired by Tumblr memes, Christianity and imagery of the turn of the century.