Meeldetuletus. Taktikaline maal, 2018
Acrylic, oil on canvas
This painting refers to the currently more and more anxious and uncertain international situation, in which both sides are accelerating the arms race, the building of new military facilities and organizing more and more regular military exercises The painting features the Baltic region with it’s surrounding countries. More specifically, the painting features all major (starting from batallion level) regular and irregular military units, which are the regular armies and the Estonian Defence League, the Latvian Zemessardze, the Lithuanian K.A.S.P. and the Polish Territorial Defence Force, and also the NATO troops stationed in the Baltic states. The units of NATO and it’s allies are depicted in blue and those of it’s potential enemies in red, using the NATO reglementary symbology. From a certain angle I have literally interpreted the following quote from Major-General Meelis Kiili, the commancer of the Estonian Defence League: „The Defence League is the security carpet that covers Estonia.“ With this painting I wish to test the viewers’ attentiveness and obervation abilities. Any person related to the military will quickly understand that the painting uses NATO symbology, thanks to which they can identify in one glance the type and size of different units (infantry brigade, armored regiment, artillery batallion, etc). On the other hand it may be much more confusing for people unfamiliar with the military and may not mean much more that some cave paintings. All the information about the location and size of the different units/bases is taken from public sources (Wikipedia, for example). The painting has been authorized by my supperiors. I wish to present this painting at the 2019 Spring Exhibition at the Tallinn Art Hall. I’ll be on a military mission in Mali when the exhibition takes place, so I feel that it makes perfectly sense that the painting should be exposed at the Spring Exhibition, considering that it’s never a hundrer procent sure that one might return alive from a mission. If anything happens to me, this painting will be exposed posthumously.
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