Mia Mäkilä

Mia, born 1979, is an Art Historian, painter, photographer, and mixed media/digital collage artist from Norrköping, in eastern Sweden.

She describes her work as horror pop surrealism or dark lowbrow. When asked to describe herself, she is fond of responding:

"Picture Pippi Longstocking and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman having a love child. That's me."

She is a self taught artist in a constant state of learning, and trying new things. Her work is heavily inspired by film directors such as David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Roy Andersson, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton; as well as artists like Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Francisco Goya, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Ryden, Marion Peck, and the masters of Disney Studio's in the 1930's-40's. She also collaborates with Gus Fink (the Creeplings Project).

Specific psychological aspects of her personality heavily influence her art: a passionate loner that dislikes traveling, is decidedly neurotic, scared of numerous things, and extremely afraid to die--not to mention living in a haunted house.

Beyond this, Mäkilä defines her genre as a kind of new Victorianism that is darkly erotic, grotesque, yet beautiful, and a fan of black humor. Her view of artists are as magicians, not moneymakers, and she abhors dishonest, deceitful people.

The goals she strives for through her work is to exorcise the personal demons of grief, sadness, pain, anger, rage, hurt, confusion, shame, and desire. Most of her work consists of acrylics, vintage photographs, paper cut outs, and charcoal, along with a few secret techniques.

Mia's website can be found here, and her blog is here.