Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman “On the Verge of Completion”

On Thursday, 9 April at 6:00 PM, a duo exhibition On the Verge of Completion by contemporary artists Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman will be opened at the Hobusepea Gallery.

The end is actually an unspeakably bleak place where no clear way forward presents itself and nothing no longer seems to lie ahead. The duo exhibition by Gerda Hansen and Rebecca Norman invites the viewer to experience art not only as something definitive, but as a way of becoming. The exhibition reveals the stages of artistic practice that usually remain hidden, offering a chance to step into the moment where a work is born and where meanings have not yet settled.

The exhibition examines the boundaries between completion and incompletion, approaching finality not as a destination, but as a state in which the forward movement is temporarily suspended. The creative process, often shaped by uncertainty, experimentation and internal tension, is usually resolved when the artist decides to declare a work complete. In this exhibition however, the viewer comes into contact with the process rather than the finalised work. The presented works do not conceal their unfinished state. Instead, they emphasise its value. On these canvases, thoughts remain dispersed, forms and tones are still taking shape, and meanings remain open. It is a moment where possibilities remain unended and the potential of the work is still unfolding.

Perhaps completing a work is a merely provisional decision, a pause within an ongoing process? The artist appears here as a practitioner of continuous choices and interruptions, guided by an intuitive and often sensitive self-reflection. Imperfection, repetition and error are not deviations, but integral to the organic nature of making. As Gilles Deleuze suggests, artworks are not defined by what they appear to be at a given moment, but by what they might become. The exhibition offers an insight into the concealed layers of artistic production, presenting the artwork as something that unfolds over time.

In Hansen’s works, layered structures strive toward presence and transparency. Repeating forms and interruptions create a rhythm that does not lead to a solution but instead exposes different stages of the creative process. She is interested in the moment when a work of art dissolves and comes into being at the same time. In Norman’s practice, the notion of completion is examined through its various permutations including the use of unstable colour pigments. For her, the apparent incompleteness of a work is not a deficiency, and the abundance of potential is realised through the material itself. The tension between continuation and completion becomes a deliberately sustained condition, in which the work does not close, but remains in an active and meaningful state of breathing.

Artists                                   

Gerda Hansen (b. 1994) is a contemporary Estonian-based artist whose practice explores the intersections of painting and digital image-making. She holds a BA in painting (2022) and an MA in contemporary art (2025) from the Estonian Academy of Arts. In the current exhibition, Hansen brings together manual processes with AI-based generative systems. Her works emerge through a visual dialogue with the machine in which images remain intentionally ambiguous and leave the attribution of meaning to the viewer. Hansen has exhibited both in Estonia and internationally and is the recipient of the 2023 Adamson-Eric Young Artist Scholarship.

Rebecca Norman (b. 2001) graduated in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts (2025), while also supplementing her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2024). Her practice addresses the convergence and misalignment between the author and the material and the resulting dissonant outcomes. Her works often engage with seemingly insignificant moments that call for new forms of categorisation through sustained attention. She is drawn to utilitarian objects that have irreversibly lost their function and various forms of apparent nonsense that mimic purposefulness. Norman has participated in several group exhibitions and received the Endover Prize for her 2025 graduation work Loaded Vacuity.

Curator

Liisi Kõuhkna is a curator and project manager who graduated with a master’s degree in health sciences from the Tallinn University and has also an MA from curatorial studies and a BA in jewellery and blacksmithing from the Estonian Academy of Arts. She has curated contemporary art exhibitions in various galleries in Estonia and abroad. Since March of this year, she works as the gallery assistant for the Estonian Artists’ Association.

Exhibition information

Location: Hobusepea Gallery, Hobusepea 2, Tallinn

Opening: 9.04.2026 from 18:00

Open for visitors: 10.04–10.05.2026,Wed, Fri–Sun 12–18, Thu 12–19

Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna

Graphic design: Helena Pass

Photo documentation: Kail Timusk

Special thanks to: Estonian Artists’ Association, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Hans-Otto Ojaste, Mari Volens, Märt Vaidla, Paul Aadam Mikson, Jaana Kormašov, family members of the artists, Põhjala Pruulikoda, Nudist Drinks