Isles and Motion. The exhibition ‘Beyond the Blue Yonder’ by Denisa Štefanigová

The edge of this country pulsates and moves. It is in constant motion. I understand this place, I have calculated its varieties, and marked it as cyclical. Like many others, I call it the shore. Almost 4,000 kilometres of Estonia’s edge is connected to a large body of water, namely the Baltic Sea. More than 1,500 smaller plots of this land are fully surrounded by it. In the east, the country borders another body of water, Lake Peipsi. The experience of those growing up on islands and by the sea is different. Moving water as an environment and waves as a horizon tend to have a reassuring presence, a feeling of openness, and can support grounding. No wonder the bravest guardian animal in Estonian folklore is a frog (Põhja Konn), an amphibious creature that is at home in water.

This seashore feels quite short. When you pass through the forest towards the open water, your toes soon get wet. Little did I know that it actually takes ages to be fully under water. I walk, and walk, and walk some more. In the distance, I can see children standing and playing, their knees still deep. They look like islands.

Alongside this beach, in the EKA Gallery, I look through a selection of paintings. The images contain figures which seem to blend together and run over into each other. The edges of these paintings are blurred and cut in flowing shapes, as if they are meant not to have borders, and possibly fit together like a puzzle. The only painting with a dominant frame (which resembles a wooden box) is marked with whirling curves carved in its skin, as if it is resisting being only what it was made to be. The paintings are by the hand of Denisa Štefanigová, a young artist from the Czech Republic who lived in Tallinn to study for her MA in contemporary art. She returned from inland to the shore for this exhibition with the curator Yilin Ma, where they incorporated sculptures by Marleen Suvi.

In the gallery, I am led towards two movable walls. They are positioned in space like a triptych around blue scenery. This (almost) monochrome painting brings me to the theme of water and liquidity. I find one body pushing another forward. The moving body is shaped like a bottle or a vessel. It seems to be floating rather than running. In the exhibition, the painting appears as the centre-piece, supporting the title ‘Beyond the Blue Yonder’. This reminds me of Werner Herzog’s 2005 sci-fi movie The Wild Blue Yonder, which follows an extra-terrestrial trying to shape a new life after his water planet went into another Ice Age. Yet the most honest experience of water by Herzog must be his book Of Walking in Ice. The director moves from Munich to Paris as a symbolic gesture to fight against the lurking death of the film historian Lotte H. Eisner. The book is actually a diary, in which Herzog describes the oddities he encounters on the road as normalities. I walk through the exhibition as Herzog walks through the countless small towns, and notice faces, layers, and unusual interactions blending together as a day in the life. He himself was also surrounded by water, but in its harsher form of snow and ice.

Whereas the exhibition departs from fluidity between human bodies and streams of liquids moving within, I find myself in still water. One protagonist in this reasoning is the funky bathtub placed in the middle of the gallery. The tub’s edges are not round, but straight and sharp. They resemble the linear edges of the mobile walls, rather than the flowing forms of the painting’s edges. In general, water in a bathtub stands still. Apart from the moment when it is filled and emptied, it is not flowing. A tub is made for a body and water in a pause. I find the glass objects of Suvi function in a similar way. They resemble flowing water, as they are transparent and have an organic shape. But glass as a material is fixed, steady and hard. The form of these sculptures is solely a fragment of movement. This glass is solidified motion. I believe it has something to do with the medium of painting as well. Whether the lines feel liquid or transparent, or the edges hold the motif of a wave, painting as a medium stands still. It captures one frame of movement. Nevertheless, a tub is not a tub without incorporating the body, which can be in direct dialogue with water, and activate it thoroughly.

Further on, three personas grab my attention. They are represented in portraits on the side of the gallery. Their background is unpainted, plain fabric. Side by side, they look me straight in the eye. I would greet them as follows: the one that’s possessed, the one that lives down under, and the one that flows from within. These three figures seem to taint me, as if they know something I don’t. Which makes a lot of sense, since they are cleverly placed on the very trickster part of the space. There is one wall in the EKA Gallery which has the potential to be rolled aside, opening up the space to the auditorium behind it. Suddenly, these three figures become guardians to me, and transform the exhibition into a play of perspectives. Plots and viewpoints try to lure me in independently as a micro-undertow.

An active stream is the interview that functions as the exhibition text. The accompanying publication to the exhibition, designed by Johanna Ruukholm, chooses to focus on a conversation between the curator and the artist. Starting off rather simply (but nevertheless honest!) from their shared time in Estonia, the dialogue opens up the active particle of painting, namely Štefanigová’s process. From early on in the conversation, she reveals her dynamics with the medium, where she tends to ‘tame’ each painting by intuitively giving in to it. I am reminded of the tactics of buffaloes, which instinctively face storms by running into them head-first. This embrace of immersion minimises the discomfort and frustration.

And thus the stillness in the bath could make sense. Štefanigová takes the plunge, embraces, and moves along with the environment’s choice. Whether it is the flow of a riverbed or the still waters of a tub, the artist actively and intuitively enters the process, and stirs the water and the medium of painting from within. For me, this is an immersion relatable to the children playing knee deep in the Baltic Sea. As islands, they observe the openness inwardly. Their bodies become a gradient, taking up any wind or stream that strolls by.

The exhibition ‘Beyond the Blue Yonder’ by Denisa Štefanigová was on show from 16 February to 16 March in the EKA Gallery, Estonia.

Photo reportage from the exhibition ‘Beyond the Blue Yonder’ by Denisa Štefanigová at EKA gallery ^[1]