Irina Laaja, born in 1989 in Vasa, Finland, is a Sweden-based artist working mostly with textile art, drawing, and painting. She holds an MFA from Umeå Academy of Fine Arts and has studied Patternmaking and Sewing in Gothenburg, as well as Fashion Design in Umeå. She also holds a BA in Art History from the University of Uppsala. Irina combines her backgrounds in fine arts and fashion design to focus on the body, its complexity and signification, and the relationship between bodies and beings. She has exhibited all around Sweden, in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Umeå, as well as in European capitals like London and Berlin. She has received several grants, both from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and from private foundations such as Estrid Ericsons Stiftelse and Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse.
