“Light shows us colours.
What’s out comes in and what’s in gets out.
Openness and closeness.
Light helps us to see details
and light makes darkness go away.
Everyone has a place and a space in this world,
sometimes it is warm and cozy, sometimes cold and bleak.
Sometimes it is noisy, sometimes it is too silent.
Always changing – in light and in shadow.
No-one can grow in darkness.
It becomes possible in light.
Darkness may seem endless but a ray of light can always lit it up
and make everything alive.
There is no absolute reference system. Everything is relative, even the flow of time.”
Sirje Petersen
Sirje Petersen is a painter and lecturer. In her artistic practice, Petersen focuses on the subject of human being and humanity. When meeting the artist’s paintings, the spectator encounters the reflections of man’s inner world where the important part is played by colour as a means of expression. While removing all unnecessary details in her paintings and adding perceptible nuances of her personal experience, Petersen achieves the dimension in her work that is close to abstraction. At her current exposition, we as spectators enter the lit-up corners of human soul in order to get the vague idea of its hidden layers. This is the artist’s cognitive journey in time.
Sirje Petersen has actively participated in exhibitions since 1981. She has held more than 60 solo exhibitions and her artworks have been exhibited both in Estonia and abroad, from the Nordic countries to the Philippines and Port Louis, Mauritius in Africa. Sirje Petersen’s artwork belongs to several art collections: Tartu Art Museum, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Library of the University of Tartu, Observatory of the University of Tartu, Supreme Court of the Republic of Estonia, Pärnu Museum of New Art, Lüneburg Art Collection in Germany and numerous private collections around the world. Petersen was nominated for Kristjan Raud Art Award in 2021, for Konrad Mägi Art Award in 2019 and 2021 as well as received the Audience Award of the 19th Annual Exhibition of the Estonian Artists’ Association in 2019. Since 2000 she has been working as an associate professor of painting in Pallas University of Applied Sciences in Tartu.
Exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Draakon gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko Ltd.
