"Soft Chaos" by Liisa Kruusmägi, Helmi Arrak & Krõõt Kukkur

On Friday, 1 August at 5:00 p.m., Liisa Kruusmägi, Helmi Arrak and Krõõt Kukkur  will open their joint exhibition "Soft Chaos" in the monumental gallery of the Tartu Art House.

A spatial collage brings together ceramics, paintings and drawings by three artists with similar mindsets. You'll also encounter works that have never before been shown to the public.

At the invitation of Soft Chaos, colours explode in our bubblegum booths.
Dust has danced up from studio floors.
Cutting lines fracture between continents where our imagined and real studios reside.
Today in Brazil, tomorrow in Africa and the day after in France.
With a free hand and a carefree spirit.

"Be like water, my friend, be like water..." mumbles Bruce Lee from another era.

We strike poses that lead nowhere.
And if they do lead somewhere, they are new poses.

Children of one era play in the sandbox of centuries.
One for all, and all for one!
One for all the indifferent ones!

Who do we resemble if we don't know where one ends and the other begins?

Exhibition text by Anari Koppel.

Liisa Kruusmägi (b. 1988) is a freelance artist working primarily with painting, drawing and ceramics. She holds a BA in Painting (2010) and an MA in Drawing (2013) from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Kruusmägi has undertaken further studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and has participated in residency programmes in Canada, Japan, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Brazil, Greece, Peru and Portugal. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and taken part in a range of group shows. Her recent major exhibitions include Memories from Altai Krai at the Tallinn City Gallery in 2024 and Cephalopods with Binoculars at the Vaal Gallery in 2022. She has been a member of the Estonian Artists' Association since 2013 and of the Estonian Painters' Association since 2022.

Helmi Arrak (b. 1988) is an Estonian artist. She studied at the Painting Department of the University of Tartu from 2007-2010 and at the Furniture Department of the Pallas University of Applied Sciences beginning in 2010. Arrak mainly depicts people, celebrities, animals and other characters through which she tells stories; her work is sketchy and illustrative. Arrak's work has been used by several publications.

Krõõt Kukkur (b. 1991) is an artist and illustrator from Tallinn who cultivates different styles and techniques in order to constantly improve herself. Over the last 10 years she has developed her own brand, Krõõt Kukkur Illustrations, collaborated with dozens of companies and conducted various workshops. Kukkur's works can be seen as permanent exhibitions on the walls of several restaurants, she has participated in many group exhibitions and her most prominent solo exhibitions are "Jungle" at the JJA restaurant in 2025, "Risomaniac" at the Telliskivi Creative Centre Gallery in 2023 and "Under the sun" in 2021, "Circus within me myself and I" in 2020, "Beyond the Seven Lands and the Sea" in 2019 and "I can't hair you" in 2018 at the Stella Soomlais Studio Gallery.

The exhibition will be open until 31 August.

Additional information:
Maret Tamme
Producer of the Tartu Art House
E-post: produtsent@kunstimaja.ee
Tel: +372 5800 3882

www.kunstimaja.ee
facebook.com/kunstimaja

Tartu Art House (Vanemuise 26) is open Wed-Mon 12.00–18.00. All exhibitions are free of charge.
The exhibition activities in the Tartu Art House are supported by the Tartu city government and the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.