The award exhibition for Roope Itälinna, Young Artist of the Year 2026, opens in the Finlayson Area on 31 October.

Itälinna’s paintings explore the multidimensional nature of human experience: loneliness and the longing for connection, escapism and hedonism, personal memories and imagined encounters. He explores solitude in both intimate domestic interiors and outdoor settings, incorporating subtle narrative cues that evoke particular emotional states, notably loneliness and alienation.

Rave culture and club nightlife are recurring themes in Itälinna’s work. Capturing ecstatic moments on the dance floor, he depicts figures basking in coloured light, enveloped in plumes of stage smoke, and immersed in electronic music. The paintings draw on the artist’s own experiences of rave culture, as well as his work as a DJ and organiser of club nights.

Itälinna’s approach is characterised by meticulous attention to detail and a painstaking, time-intensive process. He often begins with a photograph he has taken himself, which he then freely transforms in a painterly and fictional direction. Precise brushwork is a defining feature of his distinctive style. By combining meticulous, photorealistic portraiture with pared-down, more abstract settings, he creates an atmosphere charged with emotional tension. These contrasting modes of painting reflect the conflicting moods within the works, which can evoke warm euphoria and cold melancholy at the same time. It is often difficult to discern from the expressions of his figures whether their emotional states are closer to pleasure or suffering.

Roope Itälinna (b. 1990) is a Turku-based painter who has been selected as Finland’s 42nd Young Artist of the Year. He graduated with a degree in fine art from the Arts Academy at the Turku University of Applied Sciences in 2019. He has presented his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Finland, the USA, and Asia. Due to the renovation and new construction work at the Tampere Art Museum, Roope Itälinna’s exhibition is being held in the Weaving Halls in the Finlayson Area. The old factory setting engages in a unique dialogue with the thematic world of Itälinna’s works.

The Tampere Art Museum’s annual exhibition celebrates internationally significant trailblazers in the visual arts, aged 35 or under at the time of selection, highlighting new Finnish contemporary art and preserving the works of the most promising young artists of their time for future generations.

YOUNG ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2026 ROOPE ITÄLINNA31 October 2026–10 January 2027Weaving Halls, Finlayson AreaFinlaysoninkuja 9, Floor 3B, 33210 Tampere