On Friday, May 30 at 17.00, painter Mari Roosvalt’s jubilee exhibition “Her Own Time, Her Own Permission” will open at Vabaduse Gallery. The exhibition features works created in the 1990s, telling the story of the birth of collage in Roosvalti’s oeuvre. The exhibition is curated by Katariina Pruus.
For the last almost three decades, Roosvalt has explored collage both in painting and watercolor. The style that has now become a hallmark of her work has also helped shape her artistic identity. In her original collages, Roosvalt has used newspaper clippings, photographs and simple everyday objects. Through a variety of combinations, her works reflect personal flights of thought, emotions and experiences, as well as society at large.
The exhibition at the Vabaduse Gallery focuses on the period when collage first emerged in Roosvalt’s work. It offers a leap in time into the artist’s work of the 1990s, showcasing pieces that contrast with her current collage technique. The large-scale oil paintings serve as a kind of interlude and prelude to the explosion and culmination that followed, giving Mari Roosvalt’s work the personal signature most associated with her today. The exhibition is bound together by an imaginary journey based on the artist’s own time and permission to give direction to her work.
Mari Roosvalt (1945) is a renowned Estonian painter. She graduated from the Estonian State Art Institute (now Estonian Academy of Arts) in 1969, specialising in painting. She has been a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association since 1979 and a board member of the Estonian Painters’ Association since 1997.
She has been a lecturer at several art schools and has held various positions at the Estonian Academy of Arts, including Associate Professor, Head of the Open Academy, and Head of the Curriculum at the Faculty of Fine Arts. She has also served as the Chairman of the Estonian Painters’ Association and in 2015 Roosvalt was named an honorary member of the Estonian Artists’ Association.
Mari Roosvalt has been active in exhibitions since 1970. She has held more than one hundred solo exhibitions in various venues and has participated in many biennials and numerous group exhibitions in Estonia and internationally. Her work has been exhibited in Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Australia, Austria, Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Mexico and elsewhere.
The artist, who has been consistently active for more than half a century, has been awarded multiple prizes, including the Konrad Mägi Award in 2006, the Kristjan Raud Prize in 2024, and the Order of the White Star, IV Class in February 2025.
The exhibition “Her Own Time, Her Own Permission” will remain open until June 25, 2025.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
The gallery is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture, the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, and Liviko Ltd.
Vabaduse Gallery is managed by the Estonian Artists’ Association.