Merike Estna

Merike Estna (born in Estonia 1980) lives and

works in Tallinn, Estonia. She has graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a Bachelor’s degree in painting in 2005 and obtaine a MFA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College University

of London in 2009. She attended Rupert residency in Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017; residency with Karen Huber Gallery in Mexico City, Mexico, 2016; SmallProjects residency in Tromso, Norway, 2014; Paradise Lodge residency in Lonavla and Mumbai,

India, 2013.

Her work has been presented in several solo

and group exhibitions around Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and Latin America.

She was awarded the Konrad Mäe prize, Estonia 2014 and has been teaching at the Estonian

Art Academy since 2014 and at Tartu Art School

since 2016. Her work is placed in several public collections including: Kumu Art Museum, Estonia; Tartu Art Museum, Estonia; Loviisa City Collection, Finland.

The work of Merike Estna is largely invested in the processes of painting, as a way of approaching the artwork as an integral part of life rather than about life. In her process-based work, Estna is embedding patterns and colour combinations from the crafts and applied arts, vocabularies which have not traditionally been accepted in the visual language of painting. Thus, her work is challenging the masculine territory of painting and questioning

the strict visual separation between painting

and craft discourses. Initially subjecting canvases to such patterns and application-based treatments, Estna gradually progressed to cover clothes, objects and entire spaces with cottonwool colours, gradually expanding her research into colour

and the acts of painting, the possibilities

of experiencing and looking at things.

Selected projects:

2017

The seed can be initialized randomly II, duo exhibition in collaboration with Ana Cardoso

(US/ Portugal), Temnikova & Kasela gallery,

(Tallinn, Estonia)

Doublethink: Double vision, group show,

Pera Museum, curated by Alistair Hicks,

(Istanbul, Turkey)

Red Herring, performance, gallery Karen Huber, curated by Paula Lopez Zambrano,

(Mexico City, Mexico)

On Becoming Fluid, duo exhibition in collaboration with Keef Winter (UK), Hardwick gallery, (University of Gloucestershire, UK)

(In)visible dreams and streams,

curated by Maija Rudovska, CAC Vilnius, Lithuania and Ars project space (Tallinn, Estonia)

2016

WINTER IS COMING (Homage to the Future), curated by Maria Arusoo, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, (Vienna, Austria)

(In)visible dreams and streams,

curated by Maija Rudovska, CAC

(Vilnius, Lithuania)

Ghostbiker, solo, Wot No,

London Centre for Book Arts,

(London, UK)

Nomadic Images, curated by Linas Liandzbergis, XVI Vilnius Painting Triennial (Vilnius, Lithuania)

Memorial, solo, Estonian Embassy

(London, UK)

The seed can be initialized randomly,

duo with Ana Cardoso, Murias Centeno,

(Porto, Portugal)

(Not) Every Thread Ties Down / Your Split Ends Are Showing, curated by Leo Cohen and Lucy Rollins, DKUK,

(London, UK)

Freundschafsspiel, curated by Didem Yazici, Museum für Neue Kunst

(Freiburg, Germany)

DOMESTICMINDCRAFT, solo, Karen Huber Gallery, (Mexico City, Mexico)

part of series of events El Cuarto de los Ojos Sucios, performative talk, Biquini Wax,

(Mexico City, Mexico)

2015

Corporate Jungle, solo,

Temnikova & Kasala gallery

(Tallinn, Estonia)

Genialmythcraft, solo, Palermo Galerie

(Stuttgart, Germany)

Better become blowing backbeat blanket, installation, XMarks the Bokship,

Matts Gallery,

(London, UK)

2014

Blue Lagoon, solo, KUMU Art Museum,

(Tallinn, Estonia)

So Soft/+ Pure, solo, Small Projects gallery, (Tromso, Norway)

V/P: Video and Painting in a relationship, group, Solyanka State Gallery,

(Moscow, Russia)