Moderna galerija (MG+)
Aili Vint
B. 1945, Rakvere, Estonia. Lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia.
Throughout her extensive career, Aili Vint has employed a variety of techniques, including etching, gouache, digital collage, painting, and sculpture. Her use of mirrored imagery in the 1970s in a series of prints called Variety Delights demonstrates a commitment to experimentation and pushing the boundaries of traditional graphic art.
For The Oracle, we have selected a series of 26 graphic works as well as a sculpture ensemble. Her use of vibrant colours and playful compositions speaks to her ambition of conveying a feeling of transcendence, of the possibility of researching, through artistic practice, the thresholds and the bridges that connect the existing worlds with other worlds. Light, as you can see in the display here, is also very important – her works are made to glow, to acquire an aura-like state. Works should not “rest” on a surface or be simply presented on a wall; works are meant to flow and also make our minds wander. In her view, technical innovation in graphics should be at the service of emotional resonance. In her sculptural works, Aili Vint extends the artistic exploration beyond the paper and the canvas, crafting spaces that are intended to encourage bodily relationship with the works as well as contemplation. The sea and all natural phenomena play a central role in all her works. Nature emanates energy and light, and we are the receivers of this energy that we then transform into feelings, into modes, into emotions, into words, into ideas…
Her graphic art is informed by various media, a will to surpass the paper and be read as a speculative proposition to abandon the way we learn to sense the world, to experiment with more complex and multidimensional ways of perceiving. Her thinking is an exploration of space and symbolism. Her interest lies in understanding the agency of the sea, the agency of light, the agency of colour… Humans are researching artificial intelligence without acknowledging nature’s intelligence, while seeing all intelligence as combative. We would rather create oppositions between intelligences than systems oriented towards explaining how all intelligences function together.
Supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture and the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art.
