Frans Nybacka’s practice centers on worldbuilding through painting. His heavily serial work combines poetic visual storytelling and imaginative juxtapositions that create a sense of mystery and layered complexity. In recent years, he has explored a morally and environmentally deteriorating world through the lens of childlike innocence, a perspective that lends even the heaviest themes a sense of gentleness and empathy.


Nybacka repurposes overlooked and found imagery by personifying places, objects, and environments to reveal their emotional and magical presence. His exhibitions often resemble loose storyboards or stills from imagined video games, inviting viewers to construct their own narratives within the world he presents. The feverishly scraped, yet soft surfaces and faded palette are as characteristic as his compositions, that are purposefully flat in nature but contain multiple points of interest and pathways to dive into. Balancing chaos and ethereality, his paintings evoke a quiet melancholy, a sense of warm stillness, wistful, yet hopeful.

b.1993, Kangasala, Finland
lives and works in Helsinki

frans.nybacka@gmail.com
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Studies:
2016-2021     Aalto University, Art Education (unfinished)
2014-2016     University of Jyväskylä, Art Minor


Solo Exhibitions:
2026     - , Makasiini Contemporary, Helsinki upcoming 10/2026
2025     Crisis Galore, Wings Petite, tm•galleria, Helsinki
2025     Blue Steel, Vallilan Panimon Galleria, Helsinki
2024     Borrowed Time, Pori Art Museum, Poriginal Gallery, Pori
2024     Wind is rising, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki 
2023     Goblin Geology, Troll Romance, Galleria Huuto, Helsinki
2018     Goblin Lair, Elven Gear, Kosminen, Helsinki

Duo Exhibitions: 
2025     - with Jussi Kala, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki upcoming 12/2025
2023     Childish Fantasy - with Niklas Sandberg, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki

Selected Group Exhibitions:
2025     Objects of Scorn, Narthex Gallery, Chicago
2025     Riga Contemporary Art Fair, Hanzas Perons, Riga
2025     Taidehaistelija Biennaali 2025, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki
2024     CONK, Pitted Dates, Helsinki
2024     Versot, Lokal Gallery, Helsinki 
2024     Cake Fair, Kuriton Katujuhla, Helsinki
2024     Uusi Alku, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki
2023     Special Zine Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo
2022     Together, Marcy Home Exhibition, Helsinki
2021     This isn’t even my final form, Vapaan Taiteen Tila, Helsinki
2020     Goblin Doors, Online publication
2020     O’ Worm Supreme, Tuo Tuo, Joutsa
2020     Vastahankaan, Nastola old town hall, Nastola
2020     Kosminen Salonki, Kosminen, Helsinki 
2019     WE ARE THE CHILDREN, Mäsäfest Exhibition, Jyväskylä  
2019     Freedom to Roam, Kruunuvuori forest, Helsinki 
2019     Ikuinen suo - performance, Tammistofest, Helsinki 
2019     Kevätpörriäinen, Merihaka, Helsinki
2019     Hatching, Kosminen, Helsinki 
2019     Coming Continent, Home exhibition, Helsinki

Works in collections:
2025     Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
2024     Finnish National Gallery / State Art Deposit Collection
             Private collections in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, UK


Grants:
2025     Frame Finland, travel grant
2025     Saastamoinen Foundation, project grant
2025     The Stina Krook Foundation, portfolio residency stipend
2025     The Finnish Cultural Foundation, working grant
2024     Finnish Art Society, young artist grant
2024     The Paulo Foundation, working grant
2022     Arts Promotion Centre Finland, working grant
2021     Arts Promotion Centre Finland, working grant


Residencies:
2025     PortRe portfolio residency program in Copenhagen, Denmark / Finnish Cultural Institute in Denmark & Stina Krook Foundation
2025     Artist Residency in Grassina, Italy / The Finnish Artists’s Studio Foundation

Memberships:
Finnish Painter’s Union
Finnish Art Society

Media:
2023     Ny Tid 8/23, Portfolio: Frans Nybacka
2018     Ante Nouveau Magazine, Goblin Lair, Elven Gear