“The colorful flora was here long before us – the first plants began to grow on the ground 450 million years ago. The word JUNGLE has many meanings in different languages and also as a symbol. In most cases, this refers to the wild growth of something, more precisely, the fact that plants are taking over an area in the wild. The jungle changes over time as a year flowing and flowing in the winds, like the universe even – in constant motion. One can observe that at the canvases of this exhibition in many very different forms. You can see how the labyrinth of booths in Brazil’s favelas has taken over a mountainside or a sea of skyscrapers in former parts of New York. The jungle is reflected in its tropical color on the facades of the buildings of the summer Italian fishing village of Burano and flows wild in our own Nordic nature. The presence of this term can be felt in both nature and city views in masterfully painted works. Colorful and picturesque holes in our bluish gray reality – distant oases in the middle of winter. Moments where time and space are bent in front of the painter’s brush take the viewer with them, lead to dreams, ”comments Meelis Tammemägi, the curator of the exhibition.
ALEKSEJS NAUMOVS (born 1955) has participated in exhibitions since 1977. He has participated in about 45 group exhibitions and has had about 65 solo exhibitions in Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Italy, the USA, etc. After obtaining a master’s degree at the Latvian Academy of Arts, the painter continued his studies and moved up the career ladder until 1997, when he became vice-rector of the Latvian Academy of Arts and rector of the school for 2007-2017.
The author is an open-air painter who has become a rarity today, who goes into nature or the urban environment with large-format canvases, closes his eyes for a moment, feels the spirit and energy of the place and then applies it to the canvas with vigorous brushstrokes. The artist is an avid traveler, so his works are born in beautiful and distant places around the world and sometimes in very extreme conditions.
VILEN KÜNNAPU (born 1955) is an Estonian painter and architect. Vilen graduated from the Estonian SSR State Art Institute in 1971, and has been a professor at Tallinn University of Technology since 2000. He has designed numerous buildings in the center of Tallinn and Tartu, among them, for example, the Viru Center in Tallinn and the Tigutorn in Tartu. Vilen Künnapu is a good friend of Aleksejs Naumovs, they are also connected by a love of painting and architecture. Both authors have jointly been on painting trips together, the paintings have been created in Vilen’s home Tallinn and in Burano in the summer.
LIISA KRUUSMÄGI (born 1988) is an Estonian painter and illustrator. Liisa studied painting (BA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts and graduated from the same university with a degree in drawing (MA) in 2013. She has completed the Rhode Island Schools of Design and participated in residency programs at James Black Gallery in Vancouver, AIRY and Yosuga in Japan, and at the Residência São João in Kitokia Grafika, Lithuania. Solo exhibitions have taken place in Portugal, Sweden, Canada, Japan, the USA, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany and Estonia. Liisa and Aleksejs Naumovs have not met before, but their work has been exhibited together at the Painted Architecture exhibition in California. Another parallel between Liisa and Aleksejs is from a few years ago, after a difficult operation, Aleksejs was banned from painting on canvas by doctors, but the artist continued to paint from the bed using a tablet. Liisa found the same medium for herself while hiking in Brazil – this part of Liisa’s work will be exhibited together with the works of Aleksejs and Vilen.
The exhibition “JUNGLES” will remain open in the SOLARIS Gallery until the end of March.
