TRACES: TOTEMS OF TIME

The installation brings together perishability and persistence, contrasting lightness and weight, appreciating the past echoes as beautiful assets that form our presence. The roads we walk on are lined with stones, restoring energy and experiences- a visual dialogue of minimalist painted lines and shapes accompanied by still life photographs of totems (in collaboration with Nick Dunne). The movement of time is emphasized by the changing shadows within the two circular water barrel spaces, the light reflecting and moving like a sundial. The duality and echoes resonate sonically in the metal walls, interpreted into a minimalist soundscape by Mart Männik.

The paintings are artist’s subconscious streams of thoughts and cognitions, with the process playing an important role in the work- slow, monotonous, repetitive, meditative and disciplinary. Along these lines are the stones totems- surrealist shapes of reflections and no gravity, like magic milestones along the way.

Sandra Sirp(b 1988) graduated from Tallinn University Art Department in Art Education BA (2012), followed by Estonian Academy of Arts BA in Media Graphics (2017). A defining time for developing her work was the year 2015/2016, which she spent studying illustration and painting in University of Porto Faculty of Fine Arts. Currently she is working at a museum as an art and design education coordinator and educator, freelancing as a graphic designer and a visual artist. She has been a part of group shows dating back to 2008, her first solo exhibition taking place in 2016. As an artist she expresses herself through a minimalist visual language, where process plays an important part. The subject of her work is mostly focused on the inner landscapes and studies of the self – personal discoveries, journeys, feelings, thoughts and reflections. 

Helen Sirp(b 1983) ) is a London based freelance creative/art director and set designer. She graduated from London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts in 2013 after completing her MA in Creation of Narrative Environments. She previously studied art and design in Estonian Academy of Arts as well as United Nations International School in NYC.  She has worked in the design and fashion industries internationally over 10 years, focusing on the design and concepts for various exhibitions, events, installations, branded content, campaigns and editorials for photography and film. Her signature work uses narrative in a minimalistic and often surreal way, always telling a story in space using different mediums, objects, sound and light.

Photo by Rasmus Jurkatam. 2018