Photo Jürgen Ostarhild
Eemil Karila (b. 1978) is a Finnish painter whose works evoke emotional landscapes breathing in tune with nature’s rhythms. Fusing expressionism and abstraction, his paintings explore the interplay of memory, personal history, and ecological identity, often drawing inspiration from ancestral lands and untouched wilderness.
Karila’s painterly approach is deeply corporeal and poetic, with layers of color and texture that recall the sensory experiences of sunlit meadows and mossy forests. Influenced by the sensibility of poetry, his art embraces a philosophy of empathy toward the natural world, encouraging a shift from hedonism to a deeper, nature-connected happiness.
Over a career spanning more than two decades, Karila has exhibited widely in Europe and the Americas, and his works are held in major public and private collections, including the Rovaniemi and Tampere Art Museums and the Antti and Jenny Wihuri Foundation. After many years abroad, he now lives and works in his native Lapland.
