Niclas Warius: Seeing, and Being Seen
Talking to Niclas Warius feels less like an interview and more like catching up with an old friend — the kind who speaks with quiet honesty, but whose words linger long after the conversation ends.
©Niclas Warius
At 52, Niclas describes his life as simple: married, dividing his time between Helsinki and the Finnish countryside. But behind that calm surface lies a story shaped by survival and resilience. Growing up gay in Porvoo in the 1980s and 90s meant learning to live in the shadows. Visibility wasn’t an option — invisibility was a form of protection.
Today, Niclas has chosen a different path. His exhibition Recollection, currently on display at Runeberg’s Home, brings his personal journey full circle. It’s more than an art show; it’s a declaration of presence in the very city where he once felt erased.
“I think imbalance is everywhere,” Niclas reflects. “Between people, between genders, even in how we treat animals. Empathy is the bridge.”
That belief runs through his work. His art isn’t made exclusively for queer audiences, nor does it strip away its queerness to appeal to the mainstream. Instead, Niclas focuses on the humanity that underlies all connections. His pieces hold intimacy without exclusion, love without conditions. In a world that often insists on placing art — and people — into narrow categories, that openness feels radical.
Yet, Niclas admits that he’s still searching for that one moment of feeling fully seen. His wedding came close. Pride marches carry a similar energy. But perhaps Recollection itself is part of that ongoing journey.
“Life is happening now,” he says, almost as a gentle warning. “That’s all we have.”
His words land with the weight of lived experience. Visibility, he reminds us, is not a single event or a box to be checked. It is a practice — the courage to keep showing up, again and again, until you finally inhabit the spaces that once excluded you.
For Niclas, art has been that act of courage. But courage, in his world, doesn’t roar. It moves with grace, persistence, and the quiet conviction of existing on your own terms. And that, perhaps, is his most powerful message to the next generation of queer artists: your life is already your art. Let it be seen.
