During the residency in Tartu my theme was Centennial celebrations: Impressions of Tartu and Estonia. My plan was to work to find out visual differences and similarities of Estonia and Finland in everyday life of local people.
From the beginning of my residency in Tartu, I was amazed by the colours painted on wooden houses. Especially the combination of different colours painted on houses – so many colours on one building. My plan was clear – I wanted to know more. I studied about colours used in Estonia on buildings and also in traditional costumes and textiles, and how colours vary from town to town. I collected the colours from houses and drove around the town by bike taking photographs of details. I chose a few houses located in Karlova, district in Tartu, and created series of multi-layered paintings inspired by them.
I was also happy to get the possibility to do workshops in Tartu Art College and at the Tartu Nursing Home. This gave me the chance to meet students and local people there. The final week of my residency I used premises of the Estonian Print and Paper Museum to do my woodcut prints with a fascinating old press, entitled the “3724”.
My time in Tartu was filled with work and gave me a lot of inspiration for future as well.
Thank you Tartu AiR, Finnish Institute and Vantaa Artist Association.