„Earthly Border“

02.11.–20.11.2021, Draakoni Galerii, Tallinn 

Among other things, the exhibition is a possibility for Mall Nukke to return to her older creation in order to re-use the collage technique and to interweave it with oil painting. There is always a tiny drop of irony included in author’s work, so instead of forwarding the message about the imminent apocalypse it simply confirms the current state of things in the world.

We love to watch the horizon – that liberates our senses and lets us feel ourselves as a part of the universe. A beautiful sunset on a summer evening is an experience that helps us to overcome the winter darkness later on when the foggy, grey sky and bluish white fields of snow become one with the horizon. But what will become of this enchanting, even romantic view when there is something totally haunting appearing on the earthly border? Paintings at the current exhibition depict a vision of the state where the mankind has led itself to, while actively rearranging nature.

• “Horizon I” and “Horizon II” as the two largest paintings at the exhibition interpret the idea that according to our position in a landscape one and the same view can have a totally different effect. At the level too low, the horizon together with the future appears somewhere far away and foggy, which makes us feel insecure since mind’s eye is veiled. When climbing too high, to experience the transcendence, one is suddenly hit by despair because there is no beautiful border between the earth and the sky behind the concrete landscape polluted by artificial environment.
• “The Earthly Border II” depicts the symbiosis of previous paintings. Here two opposing worlds meet – the pure, pristine sky on one hand and the human carpet covering the ground that has been devastated by aggression on the other. The artificial god of war is standing in the middle of the horrendous creation, amid human remains, while stretching wings and getting ready for conquering the sky that is still intact.
• “Below the Horizon” painting series is in a way a continuation to the painting “The Earthly Border II” but it follows the form of the watercourse of the world’s largest rivers. Paintings depict human rivers streaming all over the world, at times flooding and then again receding. Those rivers carrying greed, ignorance, hunger for power and indifference flow through the devastated landscape.