Kai Hagberg & Anni Hagberg

Kai Hagberg

Kai Hagberg (b. 1957, Yli-Nampa, Finland) is an artist working across painting and sculpture to explore fluidity in human experience and perception.

Informed by more than four decades of experience in designing and hand-fabricating fine jewellery, Kai effortlessly moves between the second and third dimensions, translating image to structure and form. With his background in designing and making for women, the female subject has come to permeate his practice across all his media often appearing mid-thought or in subtly transitioning facial expression.

Kai was born in Finland, where he trained as a jeweller and hand engraver with additional studies in sculpture, painting, and drawing. Originally leaving his home country to go work in Switzerland, Kai emigrated to Australia in 1984, living first in Darwin, before making far North Queensland his home. Kai has lived and worked in the Cairns and Tablelands region for more than thirty years and is currently based in Atherton.

Kai has exhibited his work across jewellery, sculpture and painting mediums since the late 1990’s.

Anni Hagberg

Anni Hagberg (b. 1995, Cairns) is an Australian-born Finnish artist and arts worker with a particular interest in process-led material encounters and creative engagements.

Anni completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at RMIT University in 2020, and has since actively exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in Victoria. In her own creative practice,Anni often works with non-traditional materials and slow making processes, to create spatially informed works that explore phenomena of change, relational interaction, and time.

Alongside her artistic production, Anni has worked in the arts sector across volunteer, professional and freelance roles since 2020 and has completed a Master of Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne in 2023. As an arts worker, Anni is interested in creating arts experiences that facilitate diverse modes of engagement with creative practice and conversations on complexity.