“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.”
— Walt Whitman
Eemil Karila explores the fragile and interdependent relationship between human beings and the natural world — a connection in which we are both participants and wanderers. His work invites reflection on our place within a larger living network, where boundaries between human and nonhuman, subject and landscape, begin to blur.
In Karila’s paintings, trees, plants, and meadows are not mere motifs but living presences that embody the energy of the landscape and become its silent storytellers. The dialogue between color and light gives rise to a rhythm that mirrors nature’s continuous movement and the presence of life in all its forms.
Karila’s artistic thinking draws from post-anthropocentric and social-ecological perspectives, envisioning a world where humanity is part of a diverse and interrelated biosphere. Through his work, he challenges traditional hierarchies of depicting nature and seeks a form of connection based not on control, but on sensitivity and listening.
Lost in the Woods is a quiet journey into the depths of the forest, where the rhythm of nature takes the lead and where, for a fleeting moment, the viewer may lose — and find — themselves again.
Karila compares his method of painting to gardening: after watering, the colours grow on the wet bro- wn linen canvas like seeds from soil. He paints directly onto unprimed linen, to which he first applies copious amounts of water, and then paints with tempera and ink on the wet surface. Once the fabric has dried, he applies paint in thick brushstrokes, and then adds oil paint on top of that using sticks and his fingers.
Eemil Karila’s long career includes more than 30 solo exhibitions and numerous collective exhibitions around the world, for instance, in Germany, Estonia, Sweden, Brazil and Venezuela. Karila, who lived for a long time in Berlin, has since made his home in his old hometown of Rovaniemi. His works are in the collections of Rovaniemi and Tampere Art Museums, Wihuri Foundation, Aune Laaksonen, Tornio’s Aine Art Museum, the Miettinen Collection in Berlin, and elsewhere.
