Paavo Stenius was born in 1969 in Oulu, Northern Finland. Stenius has lived in various parts of Finland throughout his life but settled in Jyväskylä in central Finland twenty years ago because of its beautiful nature surrounded by lakes and forest. Stenius has had a love of the forest since he was a boy, spending hours exploring and playing amongst the spruce and pine trees. His work predominantly depicts the Finnish forest and lakes.
Initially employed as a nurse, and with no formal artistic training, Stenius painted in watercolour as a young adult for pleasure, becoming a full-time artist in 2000. He concentrated on paintings of the Finnish forest and birdlife. In 2004, Stenius started to paint in oil for the first time. He continued to paint the lakes and forest which surround him as well as the large mammals of the northern climes.
Stenius has had various solo exhibitions throughout Finland and has participated in group exhibitions in Rome, Berlin and Prague. In 2014, Stenius won first prize in the Oktober Fest Art competition held by the Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Helsinki.