August Sai returns with new solo exhibition after six-year break

Estonian painter August Sai has opened a solo exhibition at Tütar gallery after a six-year break, ERR reported. The exhibition, titled “Värvinahas”, presents paintings made using Sai’s own oil-skin technique.

In works that resemble sculptures, Sai reuses motifs from centuries-old paintings by masters including Hans Memling, Lorenzo Lotto and Rogier van der Weyden. By removing the oil skin from the canvas, he empties the images of their original meaning, shapes them by hand and makes them his own in the process.

“This is where painting begins for him as both a technical process and a concept,” art scholar Triin Metsla wrote in the exhibition introduction. “With sufficient humility towards history, faith and morality, he moves to the technical level. Through the appropriate pigment, light, magnification, fear and personal effort, he comes close enough to the old master. Then he suddenly stops and destroys it.”

“Pure imitation would be naive, uncritical and boring, like academic painting,” Metsla added.

Sai, born in 1983, creates works in series that combine visual references to recurring patterns and techniques in visual culture. He seeks new ways to rework these elements.

He graduated in painting from the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2010 and completed a residency at FLACC Workplace for Visual Artists in Belgium the same year. His recent solo exhibitions include “Värvi lugu” at Hobusepea gallery in 2020 and “Kakskümmend käänet” at Draakoni gallery in 2018.

“Värvinahas” will remain open at Tütar gallery until November 1.