Evald Okas Museum
The exhibition of works by Jaan Elken includes large-format paintings, where restrained colours are used for recreating powerful images of epic landscapes – volcanic plains of Iceland, stone deserts of the states of Nevada and Utah, or relief-rich abstractions of metropolis cities with exotic relief and/or skyline, such as San Francisco or New York. On the paintings by Jaan Elken, urban culture and its signs on walls, surfaces and spaces have started to retreat towards subordination to the rules of eternity.
„I have learned to appreciate the poetry of decay, flicker of light spots on the buildings, plateaus and vertical surfaces, in the forest and on the beach. There are rules, beside which the efforts of an artist to assert themselves are ridiculous./—/ In my opinion, it is worth to follow the creation of great painters operating with the methods of abstract art with sufficiently eclectic pictures, who use the senses stemming from reality, but mix it with natural laws and composition principles coming from higher dimensions, so that the maturing universe has strong level of recognition, while still stamped by the unique handwriting of the author.“
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.