The viewer sees a dainty but a peculiar world. Cute, but somehow strange as well. Undeniably beautiful, yes, but quirky, and, somehow, almost - dark. There's sex, but then there are flashes of war. There's the light of hope, but there's also despair. There's tenderness and naivete, but married to greed and shame. There's glitter - and then gasoline. A bitter and sweet yin-yang kaleidoscope into life, alchemising the ugly into beautiful.

Saara Vaniala is a multidisciplinary artist and a humanitarian. Her artistic work is a balancing act of soft and strong, of spiritual and sensual, of high-end and street style - of the tragedy of humanity in progress and of its virtue, love. Poetic mysticism and social commentary coyly entwine in the artist's dream-like images. Her style is unique: a characteristic ink line that cradles ingenious and imaginative colour palettes, which often arrange into female figures.

  • "We must heal ourselves and inspire each other, and we must live in a way that makes our world a better place."

    - Saara Vaniala

Saara begins by working with ink on paper, then moving onto digital coloring. Her pieces have three different stages, each an art piece in their own right. First, the intricate and sensitive ink on paper; then the attention-demanding, colourful digital mixed media. Finally, the piece gets its final form. The velvety look of giclée print on paper, the stylish yet wearable silk, the subtly renegade streetwear items, or the industrial-chic, ultra-modern choice of PVC vinyl.

"The pictures may at first look Barbie-esque, but the surface level is there to make these storyteller images readable and relatable. Like simple pop music is really about complex, contemporary sentiments, I try and do the same visually. I use pop culture's 'rules', so that any member of western society can intuitively comprehend my pieces' transcendent, multi-layered meanings."

  • "We breathe life into our bodies, but, if we are not careful, we give life to our illnesses too. We either keep this world a paradise, or we make it into a dystopia."

    - Saara Vaniala

"I heard, 'a diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure'. That resonates. It's the struggles: our struggles lead us to who we must become.

Human bodies often hold a lot of trauma, unhealthy thought patterns, and detrimental belief systems, from generation to generation. But, instead of following toxic tradition, we can choose what we deep down know is a better way. I choose transformation: love as medicine, truth as freedom, and progress as our direction.

I transmute abstract feelings into images. For words that can't be expressed, for faces that can't communicate, for minds that can't make sense of it all, and for souls that can't share - my art is for them. My work has been called inspirational, transformative, and healing. If that is the case, I have succeeded in my role as an artist.

What you are, when the image begins for you, and what you have become when you finish experiencing it, are - hopefully - two different beings. The ever-evolving, transforming you."

- Saara Vaniala