Melissa Sammalvaara 3.9-28.12.2025

Melissa Sammalvaara is an artist based in Espoo, Finland, known for her contemporary tapestries inspired by nature and moss. Her richly textured, hand-crafted works explore spatiality and the modern human relationship with nature through diverse surfaces, materials, and techniques. The tapestries grow organically on walls, forming clustered shapes that spread gently yet deliberately like a mycelium.

Sammalvaara has worked as a full-time artist since graduating from Aalto University in 2019. Her artistic practice has been supported by several grants, including from the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. She has participated in various artist residencies, such as Cité des arts in Paris, two residencies in Åland, and the Väylä Festival residency in 2023.

In recent years, Sammalvaara has held several solo exhibitions and taken part in international group shows. Her works are included in the Finnish State Art Collection, the Oulu Art Museum collection, and in Finland’s largest textile art collection, owned by Tuomas Sopanen. Works from this collection were exhibited in a major show at the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto in early 2023. Her largest work to date, Tuohi, has been widely exhibited, including at the Institut finlandais in Paris during 2022–2023. In 2023, she placed third in the Young Artists’ Competition at Art Centre Salmela and was invited to exhibit at the Mänttä Art Festival in summer 2024. In the coming years, she will take part in several museum exhibitions in Finland and abroad.