Salolainen graduated from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 1992 with a major in Textile Art and Design. At the beginning of her career, she worked as an artist and freelance textile designer in her studio in Düsseldorf, Germany and later in Vienna, Austria, before moving to her current home town  Helsinki, Finland. Her artistic work includes woven pieces, paintings, installations, and commissions for public spaces. Salolainen has been exhibited internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums and art galleries.

After 2002 Salolainen focused on artistic and design work in an industrial and commercial context, see Design

Wall, on left: Maarit Salolainen, Image, 1994. Resonanz Exhibition, 2021, Arnsberg, Germany.

Hellweg Konkret II – Resonanz 20.7.-28.8.2021 in Kolster Wedinghausen, Arnsberg, Germany. Group exhibition with works from Sammlung Schroth. Jan van Munster, Anton Quiring, Erich Reusch, Maarit Salolainen, Fred Sandback, Martin Willing, Beata Zoderer. Resonanz is part of a larger series of exhibitions on “konkrete kunst” in the Hellweg area at eight museums. “The combination of different levels of reality and materials is important for Maarit Salolainen. In her concise and sober manner, she uses light – its moment of fleetingness – as a means to organise reality. Its form only takes shape in connection with the fleeting moment. Light is used as a medium for depicting an impossible presence. The “mirrors of light” are woven from two different materials, dealing with light in opposing ways. While the metal yarn reflects the light, the monofilament lets light penetrate through it – transparency and reflection within the realms of a mathematical order of a woven structure.” (Galerie Gabriel, Kunst in Europa, 1995; Juliane Rogge, 2017, Format, 35 Jahre Sammlung Schroth, p.548)