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

Artist

Eike Eplik

sculpture, ceramics, installation, textile, mixed media

Eike Eplik

In essence

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.

Introduction

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 not exist. Her creations can be described as micro-worlds inhabited by different creatures in co-existence with fungi and plant forms, including their roots and cones. Animating the life forms and vessels that incubate them, Eplik’s sculptures inhabit the rooms in a way that recalls a bird constructing a nest, or mycelia creating a complicated network of roots.

Eike Eplik (born in 1982) graduated from the Sculpture Department of Tartu Art College (BA, 2007). She had internships with artists in Germany, Sweden, and Finland during her studies. She continued her studies in the Sculpture department at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 2010). In 2006, she was awarded the Eduard Wiiralt Stipend, and in 2012, the young artist production stipend KUKU NUNNU of the contemporary art festival ART IST KUKU NU UT. In 2015, she was nominated for the Sadolin Art Prize, and in 2018, Eplik was awarded the Addo Vabbe Stipend. She was awarded with Estonian Cultural Endowment’s annual award (2021) and was one of the recipients of the artist salary 2021–2023.

Her works are part of the Estonian Art Museum and Tartu Art Museum, BTA art collection and private collections in Estonia and Switzerland.

Eike Eplik’s solo, duo and trio exhibitions include White Dwarfs and All Those Beautiful Nebulas at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (2024–25); Constantly Inventing Itself at Rüki Gallery, Viljandi, EE (2023-2024); Shared Territory at Tartu Art Museum, EE (2021); Eike Eplik’s and Mari-Leen Kiipli’s presentation at Liste Art Fair Basel by Kogo Gallery, CH (2021); Biomass Ghost in the Corner at Kogo Gallery, Tartu, EE (2020); In the Shadow of the Twilight together with Imat Suuman at Tallinn Art Hall Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2018/2019); Natural at Hobuspea Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2018); Beauty Salon at Tartu Art House, Tartu, EE (2017); Some of These Birds Flew on Their Backs at Tallinn City Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2015); Eike Eplik / Berit Talpsepp-Jaanisoo, curated by Jevgeni Zolotko, at Galerii Noorus, Tartu, EE (2015); Kujukuju at Draakon Gallery, Tallinn, EE (2014); The Heap, Tartu Art House, Tartu, EE (2013); The Girl Who Loved Everything, Y Gallery, Tartu, EE (2011); Tiny Twig, Y Gallery, Tartu, EE (2011).

Her recent group exhibitions include Down in the Bog – Sporulation at Estonian Contemporary Art Museum, EKKM, Tallinn, EE (2024); Bring Your Own Utopia: Olha Povoroznyk and Eike Eplik installation “Safe Place” in Tartu 2024 programme; Emotional Landscapes at Gallery Arka, Vilnius, LT (2023); On the Other Side of the Great Oblivion at NART, Narva, EE (2022); Growing Out? Growing Up? Contemporary Art Collecting in the Baltics at Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga, LV (2022); My Bitter Sweet Frankenstein Body at Titanik, Turku, FI (2022); Runner Along the Border, Rat Catcher and Bricklayer at Tallinn Art Gall Gallery, EE (2022); Pine-fulness at Tallinn City Gallery, EE (2021); Bambi Project at Kogo Gallery, Tartu, EE (2021); Artishok Biennale, NO99, Tallinn, EE (2016).Youth Mode, Tartu Art Museum, EE (2015); Roadside Picnic. Tartu 1860-2014, curated by Peeter Talvistu, Tallinn Art Hall, EE (2014).

Eike Eplik is represented by Kogo Gallery.

Works