IVAR KAASIK - Painting
till August 30th, 2008
Ivar Kaasik was born in 1965 in Kingissepa (Aste), Estonia. He studied architecture (from 1983 - 86) and art (from 1986 - 92) at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, where he graduated in 1992. Kaasik graduated as well as a jewellery artist with an education in metal art (University of Art and Design in Halle/Saale, from 1989 -1990). Kaasik won the DeBeers Award (the so-called Oskar of goldsmiths) for his gold broche in Paris in 1996. Kaasik is an impassionate painter and his paintings have been exhibited internationally since 1988.
After the collapse of the socialist regime and under the impression of the new gained independence of Estonia the artist left his homeland. Kaasik moved in 1992 to Berlin to evolve his creative activities. In an interview he describes Berlin as open city, where "not your social position [...] is important, rather liberalism and openness are what opens the door for you." Berlin was - most of all - the city of contrast and restart and here the artist had the opportunity to enrich his own working with new impulses.
His collection My home is my castle was exhibited from March to April 2003 at the bank gallery of the Ãœhispank in Tallinn. Featuring a mix of 16 oil paintings of underaged boys and dogs - central motives in the work of Ivar Kaasik; it was considered as one of the most important exhibitions in his homeland.
Another exhibition, entitled Catastrohpes, was shown in 2003 in Berlin. His paintings display current events, but in a new way of interpretation. Not only the Pope and the Iraqi dictator are among his portrayed figures, with iconic paintings of airplanes and balls of fire he referred to the dramatic events on September 11th, 2001.
His styles of painting are various. In his early period he painted in pointillistic style with bright colours. After a period of reorientation and fathoming his identity, Kaasik began in 1996 with his series Portraits of the Portrayed. The second wave of hyperrealism and photorealism in the beginning of the 90s has captured the artist. The alienated and photorealistic works of Gerhard Richter in particular directed Kaasik to his specific exploration of the realities of pictures.
The works from Ivar Kaasik allude to past and transience and take a critical position towards the mass media. In his childhood he felt the impact of the Breschnew era. He grew up with art, which was shaped by the socialistic state propaganda. Censured, fabricated information processed by the media belonged to his everyday life. The artist gets his motives from the flood of images, which are provided daily by the mass media: copying is his artistic method.
His paintings irritate. They remind us of imperfect photographies. The everyday motives appear, although painted in a realistic style, unnatural and strange. With techniques like smearing or blurring the motives are alienated and the original is commented. Like old photographies his paintings are kept in covered and reduced colours. Style icons like James Dean or Alain Delon seem cool and distant, because of the restrained colour and immanent blur. And with this, Ivar Kaasik achieves something: the observer looks at it more precisely, longer and more intensive.
