Jaan Elken’s personal exhibition ON_OFF will be open in Draakon gallery from Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Exhibition will be open until April 2, 2022.
Jaan Elken: “As an artist, I create worlds that claim to be a visual whole and which intellectually charged coordinates have influenced me in one or another way. The architectonics of metaphorical landscapes has been inspired both by collapsing glaciers and rocky deserts (“Snow Line of the Atlas Mountains”, “Turquoise and Ice”), also by the ruin ensembles of exotic cultures as well as sign systems (“Northern Africa, revisited”, “Morocco”). Aesthetics that poeticizes degradation as well as observes the intersection between the inside and the outside has become less important now; I rather see a million opportunities next to the territories engaged by mass tourism and kitsch industry to map the reality according to my own rules. In 2020–2022 there were no travels to be accumulated into my artwork; however, it lies in the power of a painter to create strong simulations. It is a true physical feeling how the power of the art of painting can be found in emotional high-voltage – I seem to be in trance while sketching the unknown and/or something that lies ahead.”
List of paintings:
- BRIKSDALSBREEN. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 200 X 160. 2020-2022
- DRY YELLOW PATCH ON MOROCCAN RUG. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 200 X 160. 2020-2022
- TURQUOISE AND ICEI. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 200 X 160. 2020-2022
- DEAD FLOWERS ON GRAY RUG. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 X 150. 2021-2022
- ON_OFF I. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 X 150. 2021-2022
- ELIASID SALAZAR. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 x 150. 2021-2022
- HOLY PLACE. REVISITED II. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 X 150. 2020-2022
- ON_OFF III. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 X 150. 2021-2022
- ON_OFF II. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 X 150. 2021-2022
- TURQUOISE AND ICE II. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 200 X 160. 2020-2022
- ON_OFF V. Acrylic, collage, canvas, 120 X 150. 2021-2022