Brenda Purtsak’s solo exhibition “One day I shall be an abstract”

From 3rd to 27th of February contemporary painter Brenda Purtsak’s solo exhibition “One day I shall be an abstract” will open for visit at ARS Art Factory showroom.

The self-portrait exhibition combines fragments of the artists selected family photos and and images of humans biological body collected into her mobile phone over the past years.

The artist and the concept of the exhibition has been influenced by the anatomical wax Venuses created by an Italian neurologist and wax artist Clemente Susini and Brenda’s personal complex challenges in recent years related to her physical health. The beautiful and adorned females internal organs created in the 18th century have been “cut open” in detail layer by layer for educational purposes. Ian Shank has written that such Venuses at the time were viewed as a microcosm of the Universe.

J. L. Borges has pointed out that the labyrinth is a metaphor for man and the universe, associated on a macro level with the center of the world and on a micro level with the human heart. The better you know the anatomy of the human body, the better you understand God’s own thoughts and his world. As if the eternity has been written into the human soul – every atom of oxygen in our lungs, carbon in our muscles, calcium in our bones, and iron in our blood was created in the stars before Mother Earth was born.

The main piece of the exhibition is a large-scale fragmented painting showing parts of the artist’s body, which describe the processes of healing and decay of the human body. The theme was born after years of battling physical illness and thoughts that arose after several operations. The paintings in the exhibition encourage viewers to think about what is the essence of a soul and what remains of us in the physical world after we pass. Within the paintings the environmental and physical landscapes that have surrounded us and will continue to do so will be at display. This provides input for creating connections between the two that are inevitable in our lives.

Brenda Purtsak (1994) has graduated her Master of Contemporary Art program in 2022 and a Bachelor’s degree in Painting (2020) both at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA).

The central point of her creation is human and playfulness between the borders of abstraction and reality. Purtsak mainly uses painting as a medium of self-expression, and in this exhibition also uses oil pastels.

At the end of 2023, a large-scale personal exhibition “Birth” was held in the Project Room of the ARS Art Factory and an overview exhibition of of works in four years called “Incision” in Haapsalu City Gallery (2024). The last major solo exhibition took place in September 2025 at Artrovert gallery under the title “Distant veils”. Purtsak’s works have been featured in various exhibitions abroad, and her paintings and stained glass windows have been exhibited in the premises of the Estonian Embassy in Hague several times.

The exhibition team

Location: ARS Art Factory showroom, Pärnu mnt. 154

Open for visit 3.02-27.02.2026, Mon-Fri from 12am–6pm

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design: Rainer Kasekivi

Support and thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Artists Association, Indrek Köster, Ian Simon Märjama