During a year of solitude in the forests of western Estonia, the artist contemplated his perceptions and emotions, continuing his exploration of existential questions. He drew inspiration from the profound silence and tranquillity of the forest to alter his cognitive perspective and question life’s fundamental themes. A product of this experience, Toomik’s paintings present a clear and straightforward narrative and ultimately convey a sense of realism while still preserving the distortions and disfigurations characteristic of his style.
Jaan Toomik (born 1961) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is characterised by a metaphysical, close-to-nature, shamanist view of the world. His art addresses immortal themes such as life and death, religion and spirituality, connecting human corporeality with the cycles of nature. Having studied painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 1991), he started his career as a neo-expressionist painter in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, during Estonia’s newfound independence, he transitioned to site-specific performance and installation art. In 1997, along with Raoul Kurvitz and Siim-Tanel Annus, he represented Estonia at the Venice Biennale. One of Toomik’s most well-known videos is Father and Son (Isa ja poeg, 1998), which shows the artist skating naked on the Baltic Sea to the sound of his son’s singing. In the piece Peeter and Mart (Peeter ja Mart, 2001), Toomik portrayed his colleague, the painter Peeter Mudist, who was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. This video was shown at the Venice Biennale in the main exhibition at the Arsenale, curated by Francesco Bonam, in 2003. In 2007, during his solo exhibition at Kumu Art Museum, Toomik unveiled his first short film, Communion (Armulaud, 2007), which garnered recognition at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival and was screened in 2011 at the Centre Pompidou. In 2010, Toomik completed his second short film, Oleg, which focused on memories of his military service in the Soviet Army. His debut full-length feature film, Landscape with Many Moons (Maastik mitme kuuga), which he wrote and directed, was released in 2014. In 2023, Jaan Toomik released the short film Two Men on the Train and Someone Else.
Jaan Toomik has participated in numerous international exhibitions and biennales, including the São Paulo Biennial (1994), Manifesta European Biennial of Contemporary Art (1996), Venice Biennale (1997, 2003) and Berlin Biennale (2006). His work is held in collections at Kiasma, Museum Ludwig, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of Denmark, National Museum in Szczecin, Stedelijk Museum, Moderna Museet, as well as in the collections of Fondation Louis Vuitton and Fondazione Nicola Trussardi. Toomik’s most recent retrospective solo exhibition, “My End is My Beginning. And My Beginning is My End”, took place in 2019 at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, curated by Viktor Misiano. In 2020, Jaan Toomik was featured at the ARS project space with his show “Selfie as a Seagull”. In 2021, he had solo exhibitions at Haapsalu City Gallery and Rüki Gallery in Viljandi. During the same year, Jaan Toomik took part in the extensive group exhibition “Dreams of Freedom” at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Albertinum in Dresden. In October 2023, Jaan Toomik exhibited at the Kunsttankstelle Ottakring in Vienna, and his exhibition “Decoding the Landscape” is currently on display at Kumu Art Museum. It will be open to the public until 25 August.
Since 2000, Jaan Toomik has served as a professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts and as head of the painting department. In 2005, he received the Konrad Mägi Award for painting from the Estonian Artists’ Association.
