Biography
Harina Raina is the spelling under which the Finnish artist Harriina Räinä (born 1989) has occasionally appeared in cataloguing systems that do not handle the doubled ⟨i⟩ or the diacritic on ⟨ä⟩, and the two spellings refer to the same person. She was born in northern Finland and is based on Harakka island, off the coast of central Helsinki, where she works in a research-oriented visual practice spanning Japanese-tradition woodblock printmaking, sculpture, moving image, photography, and text. Her academic training is in printmaking: she took a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017 and a Master of Fine Arts in 2019 from the Printmaking department of the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki (Kuvataideakatemia), the principal Finnish art academy. During the BFA she undertook a graduate exchange at the University of Tsukuba in Japan (2017) in Plastic Art and Mixed Media, which gave her early sustained access to Japanese print pedagogy; she returned in 2018 for a workshop at the Kyoto studio of the American-born mokuhanga master Richard Steiner, a practitioner who has trained substantial numbers of Western mokuhanga makers from his Kyoto base. Her earlier training included Visual and Media Arts at the Academy of Pekka Halonen (2013) and Middle Eastern and North African Studies at Stockholm University (2010). Räinä's mokuhanga work is consistently embedded inside larger artistic-research projects rather than presented as discrete pictorial statements. The Other as Matter — developed in part during her 2021 Saari Residence (Kone Foundation, Mynämäki) — examined the historical use of animal-derived materials in printmaking, including brushes made from animal hair and bone-derived glues, and the project was presented as an academic paper at the fourth International Mokuhanga Conference (IMC2021 SUMI-FUSION) in Nara. Her work was also included in the SUMI-FUSION juried international exhibition that year, placing her in the Europe-Africa contingent of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners. Subsequent exhibition projects include the solo Planetary Beings (2025), the upcoming Skeletal Earths, Afterlife Waters (2026), Volatile Shells & Clutch on commercial oyster farming, and Visage and Hunted on the Finnish moose-hunting tradition that runs in her family. Solo and group venues include HAM Helsinki Art Museum (2022), Photographic Gallery Hippolyte Studio (2023), Titanik Gallery (2023), MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre (2025), and the Aine Art Museum, with a 2027 exhibition scheduled at Forum Box, Helsinki. Residency placements include Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2024), Triangle Arts Association in New York (2025), Cove Park and the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Scotland, and the Saari Residence; she has received grants from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Kone Foundation, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Her work is held in the State Collection of Finland (Valtion taideteostoimikunta) and other Finnish institutional collections. She is best understood as a printmaking-trained contemporary artist whose mokuhanga practice is methodological — a means for posing ethical and material questions about printmaking itself — rather than stylistic.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1989
- Nationality
- 🇫🇮Finland
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Harina Raina is the spelling under which the Finnish artist Harriina Räinä (born 1989) has occasionally appeared in cataloguing systems that do not handle the doubled ⟨i⟩ or the diacritic on ⟨ä⟩, and the two spellings refer to the same person. She was born in northern Finland and is based on Harakka island, off the coast of central Helsinki, where she works in a research-oriented visual practice spanning Japanese-tradition woodblock printmaking, sculpture, moving image, photography, and text. Her academic training is in printmaking: she took a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017 and a Master of Fine Arts in 2019 from the Printmaking department of the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki (Kuvataideakatemia), the principal Finnish art academy. During the BFA she undertook a graduate exchange at the University of Tsukuba in Japan (2017) in Plastic Art and Mixed Media, which gave her early sustained access to Japanese print pedagogy; she returned in 2018 for a workshop at the Kyoto studio of the American-born mokuhanga master Richard Steiner, a practitioner who has trained substantial numbers of Western mokuhanga makers from his Kyoto base. Her earlier training included Visual and Media Arts at the Academy of Pekka Halonen (2013) and Middle Eastern and North African Studies at Stockholm University (2010). Räinä's mokuhanga work is consistently embedded inside larger artistic-research projects rather than presented as discrete pictorial statements. The Other as Matter — developed in part during her 2021 Saari Residence (Kone Foundation, Mynämäki) — examined the historical use of animal-derived materials in printmaking, including brushes made from animal hair and bone-derived glues, and the project was presented as an academic paper at the fourth International Mokuhanga Conference (IMC2021 SUMI-FUSION) in Nara. Her work was also included in the SUMI-FUSION juried international exhibition that year, placing her in the Europe-Africa contingent of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners. Subsequent exhibition projects include the solo Planetary Beings (2025), the upcoming Skeletal Earths, Afterlife Waters (2026), Volatile Shells & Clutch on commercial oyster farming, and Visage and Hunted on the Finnish moose-hunting tradition that runs in her family. Solo and group venues include HAM Helsinki Art Museum (2022), Photographic Gallery Hippolyte Studio (2023), Titanik Gallery (2023), MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre (2025), and the Aine Art Museum, with a 2027 exhibition scheduled at Forum Box, Helsinki. Residency placements include Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2024), Triangle Arts Association in New York (2025), Cove Park and the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Scotland, and the Saari Residence; she has received grants from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Kone Foundation, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Her work is held in the State Collection of Finland (Valtion taideteostoimikunta) and other Finnish institutional collections. She is best understood as a printmaking-trained contemporary artist whose mokuhanga practice is methodological — a means for posing ethical and material questions about printmaking itself — rather than stylistic.
Harina Raina was active born in 1989. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Harina Raina's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Harina Raina is a contemporary printmaker working in the mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) tradition. Their work contributes to the living tradition of Japanese woodblock printing. Prices for contemporary mokuhanga prints range from $100 for smaller works to $1,500 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $180–$600 range. The global mokuhanga community has been growing, with increasing exhibition opportunities and collector interest. Contemporary mokuhanga represents an affordable entry point for collectors.