Kaos. Plahvatuse eest põgenemine, 2019
Õli lõuendil “Chaos.
“Escaping from an explosion” At the end of summer 2019 I returned from a military mission in the Republic of Mali, where I served as a French-Estonian translator. About one and a half months before returning home my unit came under attack from a car bomb. By miracle, nobody on our side was killed. Nevertheless that experience was a shock to all of us, since, after three months, we had become used to thinking that we were serving in a safe zone and that nothing bad could happen to us. The character at the center of the painting is wearing the same clothes that I was wearing during the attack. Since I wasn’t on guard duty this day, I was dressed more freely while spending time im my room, in our living area. Although the explosion took place some five hundrer meters away from us, the blast and detonation were so powerful that it seemed like some long-fire had been opened on us (like mortar fire, for example). With other people, who were in the living area, I ran to the bomb shelter. The surroundings were so full of dust that it could have been compared to infamous pictures of the 9/11 attacks, in which the streets were coverd by dust clouds. Notice how the character fleeing from the dust could appears to be quite helpless in his scarce clothing while the other characters seen through the dust cloud are wearing helmets and holding assault rifles. It’s kind of an irony that the T-shirt I was wearing at this time depicted a famous comic-book character fleeing from danger on a bicycle. The making of this painting was a necessary therapy for me to reduce the stress following the end of my mission and to readjust myself to making art.”