“My playground as a child was a forest with a lookout tower in the middle, a museum, and an old white church in Hämeenkyrö,” says Finnish painter Amalia.  Meandering on nearby hills, the young girl’s imagination leapt to goblins, trolls, and fairies.  “Some of those fairytales became pictures,” she reveals.  She made her first oil painting when she was only one year old, and even as she’s matured, a sense of wonder about the universe continues to impact her work.  The memories of a “clear blue” day and the “dark purple dusk” that fell over the forest have become the color palette for her whimsical paintings.

Largely self-taught, Amalia paints uninhibitedly and youthfully, and her colors glow radiantly.  Each enchanting painting seems as if it is a page ripped out of a children’s book.  Just as Claude Monet could make a landscape dreamlike, Amalia turns an ordinary pond or field of flowers magical when she smatters acrylic paint on canvas.