About
Asko Heikura
Asko Heikura paints, makes sculpture, and teaches on the island of Hailuoto. He prepares his own canvases and works slowly, among the island’s living world.
“Usually, I don’t know what I’m painting. Never — but something is doing that stuff for me, so things just appear in my paintings.”
Asko Heikura
“I work always with a mystery, because life has its curious ways of just breaking through.”
Asko Heikura
“There is a child in me who wants to retreat to his favourite place in nature, talking with plants, listening to plants.”
Asko Heikura
Asko Heikura is a painter, sculptor, and teacher who has worked on the island of Hailuoto, off Oulu in Northern Finland, for twenty years. Since 2006 he has taught as a class teacher and visual-arts teacher at the island’s comprehensive school, Hailuodon koulu.
He holds a Master of Arts from Aalto University (2021); his thesis, Kaaospuutarha (“Chaos Garden”), came out of a week-long contemporary-art workshop he ran with children and living plants in the Hailuoto community garden.
His phoenix sculpture stands at Marjaniemi, on Hailuoto, as part of the Oulu2026 programme, commissioned by Hailuodon Panimo.
In June 2026, before the bridge to the mainland opened and the ferry era ended, he gave some three hundred artworks to Hailuoto and all its living things.
- Public commission Phoenix, Marjaniemi — Hailuodon Panimo, Oulu2026
- Education MA, Aalto University, 2021
- Before the Bridge Some three hundred artworks given to Hailuoto and all its living things, June 2026
Selected
- Keskeneräinen — solo, Hailuoto library, 2022
- Valot ja varjot — group, 2026
- Icehole, Issue 10 — video, Reality Research Center, Helsinki, 2020
- Phoenix, Marjaniemi — Hailuodon Panimo, Oulu2026
- MA, Aalto University, 2021
- Teacher, Hailuodon koulu, since 2006