Statement
Marja Lianko, a graduate of Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, served at the School as a faculty member for twenty three years where she taught courses in printmaking and mixed media. Her work has been exhibited in numerous regional galleries and museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fogg Museum, the De Cordova Museum, the Art Complex Museum and the Rose Museum. In 2004 she received a fellowship to the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, Ireland. In 1994 Lianko was a recipient of the New England Foundation for the Arts NEA Regional Fellowship. Her work is represented in many public and private collections including those at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Fogg Musem, the De Cordova Museum, IBM, Fidelity Investments and John Hancock Insurance Company.

This is what she writes about her most recent work:
Much of my work is autobiographical in nature, going back to my roots in Finland. I call the latest series of paintings “Evening Stories”. They contain episodes from my life as well as memorable moments from the radio programs that our family used to listen to on Saturday nights when I was growing up.

In many of my sculptures I try to project some basic ingredient in the women in my family (and perhaps in most Finnish women) whom I see as strong and stubborn, grounded in the native soil like the tall, erect birches.