On Friday, 24 May at 5 p.m. painter Jaan Elken opens his solo exhibition On the Road at Vabaduse Gallery. The exhibition can be visited until 19 June, 2024.
Jaan Elken:
“The exhibition On the Road is a continuation of the direction of epic landscape paintings that were exhibited at the twin exhibition Heaven and Earth in 2019 at Hobusepea and Draakoni galleries. As an artist, I am on the road, both figuratively and literally. The surface of a painting in a pasty style and made with an open hand, can reveal as much as lines written in a confessional diary. Artist’s thoughts and somersaults with physical paint make a very sensitive material, which for me classifies painting as the most interesting form of art. The dramas (over-paintings that may or may not be staged) and other private layers on the surfaces of an expressive painter’s canvas are protected by the audience’s illiteracy. Titles don’t help here either – you don’t believe the spells of car brand names either, do you?
In January 2024, a couple of my large-format works were exhibited at the Allee Gallery, their point of view was from a drone or even from interplanetary space. At Vabaduse Gallery’s exhibition I have taken the liberty to move along the timeline as well. This is for example, with the work depicting the Red Cross transport ship Moero, which was sunk by the invading Red Army in the fall of 1944 – the tragedy that took thousands of war refugees to the bottom of the sea is something I heard from my parents when I was a child. I have lived in Lasnamäe for a long time and russified Tallinn has repeatedly found its way into my work – when in 1984 I painted a sunset in the metaphysical tunnel of Lasnamäe, then now I have oriented the then three-meter long panoramic view to the east, to the year 3024. I have been inspired by crumbling stone deserts also before. In the poetics of decay, in the search for common ground between the inner and the outer, nature always emerges as the winner, there is no doubt about that.
According to Western traditions, the universe consists of four archetypes: earth, air, water, fire. When I noticed that everything I’m currently working on in painting – from volcanic eruptions (or genesis) to apocalyptic Armageddon – was classified under these resonant and comprehensive concepts, it gave me confidence that I was on the right track. And I don’t have to choose between nature and artificial, because everything is nature, or according to quantum physics – everything is essentially virtual reality, particles wandering in intricately arranged energy fields. In my paintings, I have given up specific, chopped up notes (objects), and sounds (tonalities) have become fluid, mixed colors and complicated chords have returned.”
Jaan Elken (b. 1954) is a painter, art critic (he has published more than a few hundred art-critical and art-political articles), curator and art pedagogue. As an artist he started in the 1970s in hyperrealist style and has now become one of the most important representatives of the Estonian abstract painting.
Elken has held over 70 solo exhibitions, including in the Evald Okas Museum in Haapsalu (2019), Pärnu Museum of New Art (2009, 2014), Tallinn Art Hall (2005), Tartu Art Museum (2005), Adamson-Eric Museum (2000) and solo exhibitions in Berlin, Kyiv, Riga, Uppsala, Oulu, Tampere and elsewhere.
In the years 1997–2018, Elken was a professor of painting at the Institute of Cultural Sciences and Arts of the University of Tartu (until the department was closed), since 2018 he has been a Professor Emeritus in the field of Humanities and Arts at the University of Tartu. Elken has been a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association (EAA) since 1981. Between 1998–1999 he was the vice-president of EAA and in 1999–2013 the president of EAA.
The exhibition is supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Vabaduse Gallery is supported by: Estonian Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Liviko Ltd.