On Tuesday, 27 May 2025 Marleen Suvi opened her solo exhibition Water, Greenery and a Beautiful Face, curated by Kerly Ritval, in Draakoni gallery.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by a saying often attributed to the Persian Sufi and scholar Abu Nuʿaym al-Isfahani (948–1038): “Three things in this world help us overcome sorrow: water, greenery, and a beautiful face.”
The artist uses the phrase as a lens through which to explore its meanings. The Quran speaks of all creation being made from water; greenery signifies paradise and ascent to bliss; and the human face is understood as a reflection of the divine in man.
The exhibition unfolds as a pilgrimage toward paradise – a tribute to a beloved person, drifting through friendship, tenderness, memory and remembrance, through dreaming, reverie, and forgetting.
Kerly Ritval (1996) is a project manager at Kanuti Gildi SAAL, and an independent visual arts curator and art critic. She holds a BA in Art History and Visual Culture and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Ritval values close collaboration with artists and a shared process of refining ideas. Her broader curatorial interests engage with the human body and its corporeal reality, exploring the social frameworks, readings, and transgressions of bodily norms and stereotypes. Her recent curatorial work includes Admission Not for Everyone (Lisette Lepik and Brenda Purtsak, Hobusepea gallery, 2024), Hair in My Mouth (a solo performance by Nele Tiidelepp at Margot Samel gallery, New York, 2023), and Each Person is Born in Fragments (with co-curator Mikk Lahesalu, Estonian Sculptors’ Union exhibition at ARS Project Space, 2023).
Graphic design: Rainer Kasekivi
Technical assistance: Erik Liiv
Supported by: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Põhjala Brewery.
Exhibitions at Draakoni gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.
Photography: Alana Proosa
