Painting

Interdisciplinary painting

 Painting is one of the oldest and most traditional art mediums throughout human history. The aim of the painting department at the Estonian Academy of Arts is to support young artists in the development of their practice and to provide them with as broad a context as possible to understand painting in the third decade of the 21st century. We focus on the creation of the original artwork, which takes into consideration the history of painting and its techniques, contemporary society and art, and seeks cohesion and contact with other forms of media.

While painting is one technical approach among others in the toolbox of a contemporary artist, our main focus is on painting as a way of thinking. The study of painting includes acquiring the general knowledge and skills inherent to art as well as the discovery of the technical and conceptual opportunities provided by painting.

A painting on canvas is a very traditional medium with a long history and although the painting department at EKA values historic traditions, it also focuses on the experimental and the playful. The canvas may not always be the canvas in the traditional sense; it may be grandmother’s old slipper or a potato from Balti Jaam market. A space may be a canvas, just like an installation, video, sound piece or even a participatory performance can be a painting. The context that surrounds it is as important as the canvas itself – a painting is composed of its own materiality (its art and structure), but also of the mechanisms that remain outside the canvas. Studies at the painting department at EKA combine critical thinking with traditional skills – our strength is our ability to connect these two.

Opening of the exhibition “Pool with the moderate temperature” in ARS project room, 2023.

A view to Brenda Purtsak’s and Eero Alevi’s exhibition “Pretence” at EKA Gallery, 2020. Photo: Stanislav Stepashko