MUNTHE ART MONDAY: 
CANAL CHEONG JAGERROOS

Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.

I am CANAL CHEONG JAGERROOS, a Chinese-Finnish contemporary visual artist. I grew up in an artistic family in Macau, and I live and work between Helsinki, Shanghai, Chiba, Nice, and Berlin.

I have known from a very young age that I wanted to become an artist. From early on, I was immersed in art. My father introduced me to traditional Chinese ink and brush painting, while my mother was an opera singer. This early exposure to different artistic disciplines shaped my sensitivity to form, rhythm, and expression, and led me naturally toward an artistic path.

I studied at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and later focused on art and graphic design in Hong Kong. Over the past three decades, I have lived and worked across seven countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. This culturally diverse experience has profoundly shaped my artistic perspective. Navigating between East and West, I have found this in-between space to be both challenging and inspiring.

My practice is grounded in the space between cultures. Moving between East and West creates both tension and inspiration, forming a continuous dialogue that runs through my work. I primarily work with abstract painting and installation, developing a visual language built on layered surfaces, calligraphic gestures, rice paper, and mixed media.

Floating Island (2017-ongoing) is a central project in my practice. It serves as a metaphor for displacement, fluid identity, and the shifting conditions of contemporary life. Through this project, I explore how memory, geography, and experience overlap, forming new spaces of perception.

In addition, I co-founded the Blue and Red art project (2015-2020), which was presented in museums and institutions across China and Finland.

Canal is wearing our NILBERTO TOP.

Can you name some other female artists that inspire you and explain why?

There are many female artists whose work I find meaningful in different ways. One artist I deeply admire is Yayoi Kusama. I am inspired by her fearless commitment to her own visual language and the way she transforms deeply personal experiences into something universal. Her consistency and intensity over such a long career is very powerful.

Canal is wearing our NOVALIE OUTERWEAR.

What would you like people to notice in your artwork?

I hope viewers take time to notice the layers, textures, and traces within my work, but also to sense something more intangible - movement, memory, and emotion embedded in the surface. Rather than offering a single clear message, I aim to create an open space where each viewer can bring their own experience and interpretation.

Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?

I don’t see being a female artist as a defining factor in my career. At the same time, I don’t approach my practice through a fixed identity position. My work is more about lived experience, movement, and perception across cultures. I am interested in how identity is formed through many layers - personal history, geography, memory, and time - rather than a single category. Ultimately, my focus remains on developing a visual language that reflects complexity, transition, and continuous transformation.

Canal is wearing our NOVA DRESS.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a female artist?

While the art world has historically been male-dominated, certain assumptions and expectations can still linger quietly in the background. I try not to let this shape how I work or think about my practice. Instead, I stay focused on the studio, the process, and the ongoing development of my own visual language. In the end, I believe the work should always speak for itself, beyond any labels.