OPENING! 11 June: Thrifters and Transformers • 18.00 conversation with the artists • 19.00 opening More info

Flash Show: Seen or Unseen

Past exhibition

26.04.2025–17.05.2025

Flash Show: Seen or Unseen

Artists
Līga Spunde, Kristi Kongi, Eike Eplik, Sigrid Viir, Cloe Jancis, Keiu Maasik, Birgit Kaleva, Ann Paljuväli, Kristiina Hansen, Hedi Jaansoo

Curated by
Stella Mõttus

Venue
Kastani 42,Tartu 50410, Tartu 50410

The idea

On 26 April, we will open a flash show Seen or Unseen at Kogo Gallery, displaying works by ten female artists from Estonia and Latvia. The participating artists are Eike Eplik, Kristiina Hansen, Hedi Jaansoo, Cloe Jancis, Birgit Kaleva, Kristi Kongi, Keiu Maasik, Ann Pajuväli, Līga Spunde and Sigrid Viir, the show is curated by Stella Mõttus.

Text

The flash show features female artists who, in one way or another, deal in their work with being human or noticing human activity. What seems insignificant or looks unimportant is actually what creates our existence, our world, our home, our memories. Let this be the women around us, for example.

Being invisible is not just a desired superpower since childhood, but the daily life of billions of women. But it must also be noted that at certain moments, environments or a certain age, it is replaced by excessive and unnecessary attention. Women are in a state of endless limbo, trying to figure out how to find a balance between all the (hundreds) of roles that women carry or are expected to play.

Women have also had a role to play in art. The female nude became a symbol of modernism and we can safely say that it is still one of the main attractions today, not only in art. In this flash show, we also focus on women, but more specifically on their portrayals. The works in the exhibition can be divided into two in terms of their character and motifs, showing, introducing and acknowledging invisible, but here made visible, aspects of women’s daily lives, work, roles and image.

The show fits into this current moment, being a stopping point between Women’s Day and Mother’s Day to draw attention to the people around us and who shape our behaviours – mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, girlfriends, grandmothers, great-grandmothers.

Works

Bios

Līga Spunde (1990) is an artist from Riga, Latvia. She makes multimedia installations where personal narratives are closely intertwined with carefully constructed fictions. The interpretation and use of recognizable characters serves as an extension of her personal experiences, while tapping into general truths and accepted tropes. Usually, the content of the work determines the physical form of the conception, so she uses variety of media, techniques and materials in her unique installations.… More

Kristi Kongi is a painter and installation artist whose works are based on her observations, emotions and memories placed in specific or imagined places. She uses colour, light and space as her main world-building tools and installations as extensions of her paintings, often creating a “painting inside painting” effect. Besides painting on canvas, walls, floors and ceilings, she also uses various coloured materials such as fabric, plywood and acrylic plastic to create… More

Eike Eplik is a sculptor and installation artist who is deeply fascinated by biodiversity and its complicated relationship with humankind. She creates sensitive and imaginative works full of personal mythology through different visual expressions and materials such as clay, plaster, metal, wood and ready-made. Echoing philosopher Astrida Neimanis’s idea of water-connected worlds, the artist takes a humble approach to all living things, and in her art, strictly defined categories and hierarchies do… More

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