Inaugurates three solo shows in Finland in nine days. Tries to be an Instagram art star without any success. Opens two more solo shows in his native country – one in collaboration with his composer stepbrother Erkki Veltheim – on consecutive days. Walks seven million steps.

Concentrates in a year-long research project about the Finnish community in the Spanish seaside resort town Fuengirola traveling there several times. Squats an unfinished and abandoned house owned by a bank and organizes there an exhibition. Travels to Kyiv invited by local cultural organizations during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Raises money for UNHCR – The United Nations Refugee Agency – with his Euro Dreams campaign.

Serlachius Museums publishes a monograph in the series of the most important artists in their collection. Once again his portrait painting, this time representing prime minister Pedro Sánchez, is in the center of attention at Arco Madrid art fair. Food and drink are the subject matter of the year, first in an intervention at Hotel and Restaurant Museum in Helsinki and then in a solo show at Galerie Forsblom, where he trades with the visitors signed pea soup cans to food that is sent to war-torn Ukraine.

Celebrates the 25th anniversary of his first solo show. Launches Turbomoney, an art currency increasing its price constantly. Moves to his new studio in Pepino. Establishes Turborealist Collectors’ Club.

Drawing Franco Wasn’t as Bad as They Say gets all the media attention at ARCOmadrid art fair. Gives in two days over fifty interviews to the press, radio and TV. Some people mistakenly believe the ironic work supports fascism. Two animal themed solo shows in Helsinki just before the corona virus lockdown. At the Natural History Museum the drawings are installed next to the taxidermies in the permanent exhibition. At Galerie Forsblom’s show AALF – Anthropomorphic Animals’ Liberation Front is the protagonist. The exhibition at Makasiini Contemporary deals with his artisthood and narcissistic personality disorder. Benin based portrait painting collective Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo gets a large commission from Serlachius Museums. Begins to build a new studio in Pepino.

Shows Bad Hair Day Leaders, paintings made in Benin, exhibited in Tampere and Oulu, Finland. The BBC writes about Salon de Painture Grand-Popo. Our Favorite Kings is one of the most photographed works at ARCOmadrid art fair, many interviews at the fair and later at the studio.

A five-week residency in Grand-Popo, Benin. Works with a local commercial sign painter and sets up a portrait business Salon de Peinture Grand-Popo. Releases The Best of All Possible Worlds – a luxury edition book of his drawings. Sets up his studio at Galerie Forsblom for two weeks and half for the show Riiko Sakkinen’s Drawing Room.

Closing Borders at Serlachius Museums is his most ambitious exhibition up to the date. Some visitors cry in the show. Does also another museum solo show: Presidential Game at Hyvinkää Art Museum with huge murals of all presidents of Finland – the visitors can vote their most loved and hated leaders.

First museum solo shows outside of Finland at Bury Art Museum in the UK and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Travels with Serlachius Museum’s director Pauli Sivonen to Ceuta, Melilla, Lesvos, Calais Jungle and the Balkans following the routes of refugees and migrants preparing his show Closing Borders.

First exhibition at Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki. Candidate in the elections of the legislature of Castilla-La Mancha. After the elections, resigns from the Communist Party of Spain. Moves from Cervera de los Montes to Pepino, the neighboring village, where he builds a new house. Exhibits black monochrome paintings in Stockholm in an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of Malevich’s Black Square.

Completes a series of big hand painted Talavera plates and exhibits them at Madrid’s ARCO art fair where he has a solo booth. Solo show Muna – Museum of No Art at the newly inaugurated Serlachius Museums in Finland.

Joins the Communist Party of Spain. Begins to write monthly columns for two maggazines: Cult24 and Olé. Hides 1000€ in 5€ bank notes in a public library in Helsinki as an unauthorized intervention. Curates with Jani Leinonen Homelessness Fair at Hyvinkää Art Museum. Does a two-month residency at Xanadu in Beirut. Tries to travel again to Damascus but it’s impossible for the war. Paints 57 Varieties red monochrome series which is exhibited in the Carnegie Art Award in Stockholm. Pulls out a work from an exhibition in France when its government threatens to bomb Syria.

Travels to Damascus to exhibit in spite of or because of the civil war. Does active propaganda for the secular and multicultural Syria, both in the country during the visit and later abroad. Exhibits Syrian works in Helsinki.

Exhibits in Monterrey, Mexico, the focal point of the drug violence. Spends one month in Syria during the uprising. Exhibits Syrian works in Madrid. All his over 50 hotel drawings are acquired by the Rich Collection. Starts to collaborate with the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat in their panel of intellectuals writing opinions once a week.

Writes the Manifesto of Turborealism. His entire show of list drawings is acquired by the Helsinki Art Museum. Receives a monthly grant of the Art Council of Finland for two years. His drawing Secrets of Sexy Cooking is exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Riiko Sakkinen Image Club, the first hardcover monograph, is published. His son is born.

Stays two months in Helsinki preparing with Jani Leinonen works for their major museum show Jani and Riiko’s Free World at Amos Anderson Art Museum. Makes also an installation at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. Becomes an art celebrity in Finland and appears in numerous magazines and TV talk shows. Speaks in the interviews about communism where everybody drives a BMW as his utopia. Starts to work with Korjaamo Galleria. Curates the exhibition Trickle-down Theory with the works of almost one hundred artists around the world. Exhibits and sells an installation at Art Basel art fair where he has dinner with the model Naomi Campbell. Spends the summer in Beijing, where he executes a series of collaborative paintings with Judas Arrieta. Participates in the 798 Beijing Biennale. Travels to the Maldives for an unsuccessful project that is never completed.

Exhibits at the Finnish Cultural Institute in Sweden and demands in the interviews an official apology of the Swedish government for colonializing Finland in the past. Teaches in several universities in Finland his Survival Kit for Young Artists. Does his first solo shows in Paris and Berlin. Travels to South Korea to execute the installation We Love Samsung and Kim-Il Sung at the Yeosu International Art Festival. The work causes a huge media impact, an investigation by the police and demonstrations demanding censorship, what finally is done. Travels for an exhibition to Chicago when Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States.

Stays two months in Tokyo as artist-in-residence, His work Human Rights Damage our Economy is censored in a group show in Beijing. Several drawings are acquired by Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.

Travels to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, where he stays in a guest house of a huge clothing factory, and is impressed by the Chinese culture and economy. Participates in the exhibition of the Spanish young artists organized by the government. The first Riiko Sakkinen website is launched.

Gets married and his daughter is born. Settles in Cervera de los Montes, a small village where he reforms an old house. Helps his father-in-law who is cowboy. Works also as a clown, English teacher for bus drivers, guide in a vineyard, all-terrain vehicle instructor and extra in films and TV ads. Does his first solo show in Madrid. Makes the first list drawings. Shows works at Art Brussels, his first art fair.

Lives in Talavera de la Reina, Spain. Travels for the first time to America for his New York solo show Everything I Don’t Understand Must Be Sin which is mentioned in The New York Times. The show features his first figurative mural. In the end of the year spends  few weeks in Texas with Jani Leinonen where they make two shows. Begins to work with the independent curator Raúl Zamudio who includes him in numerous exhibition during the next years. Writes columns for Ylioppilaslehti, a prestigious publication of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki. Decorates with his art a reception given by the president of Finland Tarja Halonen for the king of Belgium Albert II in Brussels.

Travels around the Balkans with Katja Tukiainen and Niko Luoma for a project that consist of glueing racist posters – with texts from old encyclopedias – illegally on walls. Sells 19 drawings to a foundation which later donates them to MoMA’s. Paints during the summer in Brussels and Antwerp and later shows the works in Helsinki receiving lots of media attention and negative critiques. In the end of the year, moves permanently to Spain. Participates as an expert in Sarajevo in an intercultural dialog and conflict prevention conference organized by the Council of Europe.

Moves again to Cuenca but stays two months in the winter in a residency hosted by the Nordic Watercolor Museum in Skärhamn, Sweden. Begins to write articles for Taide, a prestigious Finnish art magazine. Graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts. One of the pieces of his degree show installation is his mother’s cocker spaniel. The visitors must pay one euro as entrance fee, including professors and journalists. Directly after the graduation goes to a residency in London hosted by Camden Arts Centre and Delfina Studios. Feels that it’s easy to be a successful artist. Camden Arts Centre organizes his performance series and edits his first monographic book. Exhibits together with Jani Leinonen at Helsinki Art Museum, which acquires his works, and participates in the Fourth Triennial of Finnish Photography at Amos Anderson Art Museum. Visits Alhambra in Granada. Travels to Melbourne to meet his Australian family.

Lives in Madrid and works first as an assistant at Galería Buades and later in an exhibition installation company traveling around Spain. Curates the exhibition First in, First out, First in, First Serve in Cuenca, where he also participates as extra dancer in the famous choreographer La Ribot’s piece. Travels by car from Madrid to Venice to the opening of the Biennale. Doesn’t have an invitation and jumps over the wall of Giardini prepared with a pizza base and cream to pie Harald Szeemann, the curator of the Biennale, but can’t find him. Finally decides to move back to Helsinki to finish his Master of Fine Arts degree. During the exhibition Ars 01 at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art works as interpreter of Santiago Sierra. The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat writes a mocking three-page article of him as a revenge of the Tal R incident previous year.

Stays two months in Berlin. Is heavily impacted at Kunst-Werke by Santiago Sierra’s exhibition with asylum seekers in cardboard boxes and Jonathan Meese’s installation with Nazi paraphernalia. In Helsinki, attends a workshop by the Danish artist Tal R, and impersonates him in an interview for Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest newspaper in Finland. The article is published with a large foto of him and the newspaper blacklists him for few years. Organizes an exhibition at the gallery of the Academy including works of fellow artists, imaginary friends and his grandmother. During the next years works also under the pseudonym Görsky Grytvic. Participates in Kassel in a workshop conducted by Okwui Enwezor, the director of Documenta 11.

Studies at the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts with Henry Wuorila-Stenberg as his professor. Runs with his fellow students an illegal bar in the basement of the Academy. Is more focused on the question how to be an artist and what is the role of artist in the society than in making any artifacts.

Begins to work as a guide in the newly established Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, where he is impressed by Bjarne Melgaard’s exhibition Everything American Is Evil – The Return to Constantinople. Meets his Spanish future wife in Stockholm when they are visiting the Moderna Museet. Takes a trip to Saint Petersburg and Karelia, from where his family fled during the World War II. Travels to Northern Ireland for a group show with his fellow students. Stays in Cuenca, Spain, the winter as an exchange student. The following years spends more time in Spain than Finland, though he continues studying in Finland. Does the first A4 size drawings.

Applies for the third time to the Academy of Fine Arts and is finally accepted. Suffers from the classical training and organizes a student rebellion against the professors. As a result he is liberated from the model drawing. His future best friend and collaborator Jani Leinonen is in the same class.

Shows his art for the first time – the solo exhibition Kotitalouspornoa (Domestic Porn) consists of painted domestic appliances and receives positive critiques and a wide media coverage. Applies for the second time to the Academy of Fine Arts and is rejected again. Works as a vendor at a convenience store chain but quits soon after a nervous breakdown. Attends to an obligatory therapy after being expelled for mental problems from the military service the previous year. Participates in the national juried exhibition of young artists with three flower paintings. Becomes a member of the artists’ association Muu and is elected to its board. Writes poetry. Travels to London and sees Jake & Dinos Chapman’s exhibition Chapmanworld.