For the Love of Art – Promoting Nordic Fine Arts for 30 years
How did Ars Fennica get its start? The film opens up the origin of why a fine art award was needed in Finland over 30 years ago.
Updates
How did Ars Fennica get its start? The film opens up the origin of why a fine art award was needed in Finland over 30 years ago.
ARS FENNICA 2021 candidate exhibition was opened on 15th October 2021 at Hämeenlinna Art Museum. See photos and from the opening.
ARS FENNICA, Finland’s most prestigious art award, is presented by the Henna and Pertti Niemistö Foundation, established in 1990. Presented in recognition of an outstanding
ARS FENNICA Candidates 2025
Norway
Sweden
Nature is depicted in Roland Persson’s painterly silicone sculptures and large-scale installations with an ambiguous tension, balancing destruction and creation. His representations of reality often blend in surreal, dreamlike elements, with plants and animals appearing distorted and mistreated by humanity. Persson’s work features objects or fragments of nature to which he has a special connection or with which he grew up. The subject can also be stories or fantasies that are loaded with something that concerns him personally.
FINLAND
Finland
A joint exhibition showcasing the nominees’ works will be on display at HAM Helsinki Art Museum from October 24, 2025, to March 15, 2026. The winner will be announced in the spring of 2026. The public can also vote for their favorite at the exhibition.
ARS FENNICA 2023
“The decision to give the Award to Emilija Škarnulytė is based on the unique approach that she has demonstrated in her films and immersive installations. Her work is deeply complex in terms of both content and methodology, covering topics such as climate change, extraction, and extinction in ways that combine critical analysis with a searching imagination.”
Anne Barlow, Art expert invited by award panel
From the archive
First ARS Fennica candidates 1991
ARS FENNICA -foundation
The Henna and Pertti Niemistö Art Foundation – ARS FENNICA sr was established in 1990 to promote the arts by opening up new channels for Finnish visual art internationally, by providing artists with inspiration in their creative work, and by encouraging interest in and respect for the visual arts among the general public.
In alternate years, the Foundation awards Finland’s most significant visual-art prize – 50,000 euros. The prize goes to an artist in recognition of individual artistic work of outstanding quality.