PRESS RELEASE

MARIS KARJATSE's  (1976) personal exhibition Mother's not Home will be open from March 20th to April 7th 2018 in Draakon gallery.
Finissage of the exhibition will take place at 5pm on Friday, April 6th in the gallery.

“The essence of anxiety lies in the presence of an object, not in the absence of it.“
Jacques Lacan

Mother cannot always be there to serve her child – this is an intensive and somewhat painful knowledge that as a result may have a constructing effect on a child. How to continue being a „good-enough mother“ when a child is becoming more independent? Staying home alone induces ambivalent emotions both in a child and in a mother – including worrying, anxiety, liberation and excitement. The possibility of absence gives presence the feeling of safety. For a child, the most anxious thing could be the lack of the child's relation to absence. British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott has emphasized the importance of the ability to be alone and with that he does not mean that one has to keep away from each other nor be lonely but what counts the most is the non-interventional nearness of mother.

Current exhibition is the expansion of Maris Karjatse's earlier works “Good-Enough Mother“ (2016) and “Fort-da“ (2017). Whereas in the former works the main emphasis lay on the traumatic experience related to the absence of mother then “Mother's not Home“ studies absence as a positive and liberating phenomenon. The artist is inspired by personal illusions and memories; she collects her study material from daily life. Karjatse contemplates the dynamics of the relationship between mother and child as well as analyzes the ambivalent emotions related to closeness, separation and becoming independent.

Maris Karjatse lives and works in Tallinn. She has graduated from the department of English philology at Tallinn University (2002) and obtained BA degree in the department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2017) where she is currently continuing with Master's studies. As a member of Umbrella Group Maris Karjatse has participated in the group exhibition “Confusion“ in the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (2016) and in “Not Really“ in ARS Project Room (2017). Present exhibition is Maris Karjatse's first solo exhibition.

The artist's gratitude to: Marie and Tõnu Karjatse, Elin Kard, Sirja-Liisa Eelma, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Carl-Robert Kagge, Cloe Jancis, department of photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Marco Laimre.

Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Exhibitions in Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.