Biography

Marika Maijala (born 1974) currently works in the Artists’ House on Harakka Island, Helsinki, and studies painting at the Free Art School Helsinki. Her artistic practice draws from play, experiment and trial and error in the spirit of DIY. Her main creative sources are the realm of narration, which she loved already as a child, as well as her relationships with other creatures. Maijala’s versatile body of work includes picture books, art books, paintings, drawings, texts, animations, videos, installations and illustrations for public spaces.

Maijala has received several awards and nominations for her work as a children’s book illustrator, for example the Rudolf Koivu award for best children’s book illustration twice (2009 and 2019) and the Finnish State Award for Illustration Art in 2020. Her debut book as a children's book author, Ruusun matka (2018), was a nominee for the Nordic Council Children’s and Young People’s Literature Prize and was presented in the Bologna Illustrators’ Exhibition. Her stories and illustrations have been published worldwide.