When Sami Havia begins a new painting or drawing, he sets the basis for a color palette and improvises. Without further planning or design, he takes the colors and starts drawing forms and playing with shapes. Whether on paper or canvas, he draws—even when he paints. He utilizes brushes, colored pencils, acrylics, oil paint, pastels, and sticks. Havia’s aesthetic is lush, frisky, and chaotic. Yet, his work becomes organically organized. His works are dynamic, with each supporting element on a mission to harmonize. He does not work with themes but with shapes, forms, movement, and growth. He’s drawn to soft and gentle things: beauty but also the grotesque.

Sami Havia was born in 1982 in Säkylä, Finland, and lives in Helsinki, Finland. He graduated with an MA from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, Finland (2011).

Havia has mounted solo exhibitions at Gallery Halmetoja in Helsinki, Finland (2024, 2021); Massey Klein Gallery in New York, NY (2022); Artag Gallery in Helsinki, Finland (2019); tm•gallery in Helsinki, Finland (2017); and others.

His work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, Finland (2020); Massey Klein Gallery in New York, NY (2020); the Exhibition Laboratory at Uniarts in Helsinki, Finland (2018); the Jyväskylä Art Museum in Jyväskylä, Finland (2017), Fullersta Gård Art Gallery in Huddinge, Sweden (2016); Lapinlahti Lähde in Helsinki, Finland (2016); the Hämeenlinna Art Museum in Hämeenlinna, Finland (2016); the Salo Art Museum in Salo, Finland (2015); and elsewhere.

The artist has been featured in numerous print and online publications, including Around Journal, EDIT, Chicago Reader, AS|MAG, and VICE.

Havia’s paintings are drawings reside in many public collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Finnish State Art Deposit Collection, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Galerie Anhava Collection, the Hämeenlinna Art Museum, the Vantaa Art Museum, the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts collection, the Keva collection, and the Seppo Fränti collection, to name a few.