Myymälä2 is pleased to present “Songs of Life and Death” by Tallinn-based artist Pille Ernesaks, the exhibition is Ernesak’s first solo show in Finland. The exhibition could be experienced as a dialogue between the artist and his garden in Kopli, a traditional neighbour south of Tallinn. The main character of the exhibition is the artist’s untamed garden, which tells true stories that happened at different times. The artist insists that she listens to the garden and translates its feelings into works of art through her aesthetic filter. Ernesaks garden is a place where she is deeply rooted, She lives in the same house bought by her maternal great-grandfather, a domicile which has been a dwelling place for five generations of her family.

Ernesaks joints a large and well-documented tradition of artists who are devoted and maintain enduring affairs to all living species that sprout and bloom on their green spaces. Perhaps because the peculiar life of a garden is also a constant reminder that anything of beauty and splendour takes time, and involves attention and attachment, then gardens are alike cathedrals which nurture and feed the creative spirit.

Ernesaks artistic premise points out that her garden, which she considers her shelter and paradise, is the narrator of an intricated story that extends time and space and tales of life, —the blossoming greenery—, and death, —the garden is adjacent to land which belongs to two previously cemeteries—. The exhibition presents a recent series of paintings on aluminium sheets. The landscape and vegetation-related allusions of Ernesaks paintings might not be so evident to unpack, they are the result of an intuitive process of semi-abstraction that with soft touches of pictoric mystery and foliage gradations can evoke the copiousness and lushness of her garden.
The exhibition also includes a video piece, ‘The creation of a tree’, a short but conclusive homage to the grandeur of old trees, somehow when looking at it is not a coincidence to recall Herman Hesse’s ‘100-year-old love letter to trees’.

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone.”
Pille Ernesaks exhibition is only a brief testament to her unearthly engagement with her subject, her garden. At the same time her obsession with portraying her garden as reflect of her personality evidences that clearly nature and our private landscapes call to something very deep in us. Somehow Ernesaks visual metaphor on that piece of land covered in vegetation and wildlife condenses the masterful, almost mystical way in which nature intertwines a complex chain of relationships and layers into the fabric of life.

About the artist:

Pille Ernesaks graduated from the Tallinn Art Institute. Recent solo exhibitions: “Metamorphoses” XVII Tallinn Design Festival, Baltic Manufactory, Tallinn, Estonia (2022) “Don’t cry if there’s nothing wrong…” Kastellaanimaja Gallery, Tallinn, (2021) “For Music / Forgotten scores” Estonia Concert Hall Gallery, Tallinn, (2018) and “Children of chalk”, Vabaduse Gallery, Tallinn (2016). She has participated in recent group exhibitions at HAA Gallery, Finland (2022); Sepikoda Gallery (2021); Kadriorg Gallery, Tallinn (2021); Tallinn Art Hall (2020); Pärnu Museum of New Art (2017-2022); Noorus Gallery, Tartu (2021) and Jõhvi City Gallery (2018)

As a painter, she is interested in depicting matter and subjects through a process of personal abstraction. She enjoys the tension caused by the sense of risk and struggle created between the complex balance of order and chaos, as well as the desire to find a moment within a most impulsive and immediate depiction style just before the risk of losing visual communication with the viewer.

Pille Ernesaks exhibition is financially supported by EESTI KULTUURKAPITAL -The Cultural Endowment of Estonia-

The exhibition is curated by Ramiro Camelo. It is part of the Myymälä2 Baltic Fellowship Network, a program supported by The Finnish Cultural Foundation, and part of the Baltic outreach of Quantum Critic, supported by the Finnish Ministry of Culture.