HOTEL AX EXHIBITION 1.7-30.9
Curated by: Emilia Kannosto
Soile Heinikoski
Soile Heinikoski is a self-taught ceramic artist. Soile works intuitively, and chance plays a part in the completion of her works. Heinikoski’s art allows for incompleteness and roughness, reflecting lived life. Colors are an important part of working with ceramics, and glazing her works is Soile’s favorite activity. Her journey into art began with abstract color paintings and female figure images. Heinikoski transitioned to ceramic art six years ago. Shapes and colors captivated her. Soile creates various figures and art ceramic products under the name Loona Keramik.
You can find Soile’s works on Instagram at @soile.heinikoski or @loona.keramik
Carolina Grunér
Carolina Grunér (b. 1982) is a painter living and working in Sipoo. She has been painting full-time since 2013, and her works have been collected worldwide. Characteristic of Carolina’s works, which exude both sensitivity and strength, is the use of pink hues. Painting for Carolina is a continuous process where she surrenders to inspiration, daring to let go of the mind’s desire to control the outcome. Thus, each painting and its process become a dialogue between the material and the immaterial.
www.carolinagruner.com
Instagram: @carolinagruner
Facebook: Carolina Grunér
Email: hello@carolinagruner.com
Sofia Nieminen
Sofia Nieminen is an artist whose paintings are born inspired by intuition, emotions, and nature. Her works invite the viewer to pause and find a connection to themselves and the surrounding world.
Get in touch:
sofiakristiina.nieminen@gmail.com
Instagram: by_sofia_n
Emilia Kannosto
Emilia Kannosto is a visual artist by profession. She primarily works with acrylic painting, combining textiles, patterns, drawing elements, and mixed media in her works. Her working process is intuitive and layered; the works gradually build up through colors, texture, rhythm, and symbolism until they form their own visual and emotional world.
Instagram: @emiliakannosto
E-mail: emilia.kannosto@gmail.com
AX UNDER EXHIBITION 1.7-1.9.2026
Emilia Kannosto
Curated and selected Kenny Mihigo and J.C. Muyonjo for this exhibition because both artists challenge conventional boundaries between disciplines while addressing themes of identity, emotion, and lived experience. Despite their distinct approaches, their works complement one another through a shared commitment to authentic expression
E-mail: ek.curatorial@gmail.com
Kenny Mihigo
Kenny Mihigo is a multidisciplinary artist who explores many different forms of expression. When he paints, he doesn’t really think about “making art” or even painting itself, he thinks about life, what it means, identity, movement, emotion, and the feeling of being human. He is heavily inspired by dance and grafitti culture, intimacy, experimentation, and things that feel provocative or emotionally real. His work moves between raw instinct and personal reflection, often existing in spaces that feel vulnerable, physical, and unfinished in an intentional way. Through different mediums, Kenny Mihigo creates work that is less about
perfection and more about feeling, presence, and honest expression
IG: kenny_mihigo
J.C. Muyonjo
Abatuuze is a Luganda word from Uganda that loosely translates as “inhabitants of the land” which is both a profound homecoming and a powerful reckoning. Muyonjo navigates life between continents, delving into the complex interplay where identity, memory, and belonging are held in tension. He reckons that to be an inhabitant elsewhere is to become, by necessity, a translator of culture, of perception, of the stories others carry about a place they have never stood a foot inside that land. Each piece begins as an illustrated or digital painting, before being fused with original sound design and music to create audio-reactive visuals that breathe and respond in real-time. The colourful and alluring images by Muyonjo seem to be in constant mutation; they shift focus here and there. This deliberate approach speaks strongly to a world where audiences encounter art through screens and fragmented attention. Muyonjo builds work that demands to be experienced rather than simply seen. Sound ignites the visual, and the visual breathes life into sound.
“Abatuuze” amplifies the voices of Ugandan spoken word artists Kabera Angel, Ssebo Lule, Ebrahim Soul’O, Wake 256 and Gambian Kora player Yahya Sonko, and developed in partnership with AfricaNoFilter, “Abatuuze” interrogates aspiration and frustration, systems that serve and systems that fail, and the continent’s youngest global population carrying both the weight and wonder of Africa, a continent balancing modernity while preserving ancestral traditions, in this sense, “Abatuuze” is Muyonjo upbeat artistic testimony, It’s a celebration of hope and resolute confidence in the future of his homeland.
Artist Bio
J.C. Muyonjo is an interdisciplinary artist living at the meeting point of sound, image, and interactive experiences. His practice spans visual communication, sound design, digital illustration, and new media, building audio-visual worlds. His work has taken the form of VR/AR experiences, audio-reactive visuals, soundscape, compositions, and music, with different albums and EPs released between 2016 and 2025. He has also collaborated with various artists like sound artist Serena Criss, with their piece Metamorphosis being selected for screening at the PAYSAGES | COMPOSÉS 2025 festival in France, and the audio-visual piece My Campus created for Aalto University’s Open Day 2023. His Abatuuze project, developed in partnership with AfricaNoFilter, extends this practice into cultural and political territory, merging spoken word, the Kora, and immersive technology to challenge stereotypical narratives about the African continent. Muyonjo is also a recipient of the Folger Shakespeare Library Artistic Research Fellowship (Washington D.C., 2024), the Africalia Creativity is Life Residency Grant (2020), and the Finland scholarship from Aalto University’s Sound in New Media programme 2022. His work has been exhibited internationally and in his home country, Uganda.
IG: jcmuyonjo