An Egg, a Larva, a Nymph, 13th Baltic Art Triennial, Tallinn

Estonian artist Merike Estna is a painter, but performance is often a vital element in the paintings she makes. At Art in General in New York last year, the artist held a picnic on one of them. For “Give Up the Ghost,” Estna has reversed the typical gaze to a “female” one and introduced a nude male into her colorful installation. The seated performer follows a lineage in the artist’s practice: Craft, textiles, ceramics, and clothes are frequent components in Estna’s work, as she tries to activate a more feminine language in art.

Estna has incorporated images of ticks, flies, and snakes across 4,000 hand-painted and glazed tiles laid across the floor, around the pretty painted pottery, as well as in her large-scale painting. It’s a rather threatening environment for a naked body, but Estna’s male performer was serene amid Estna’s fauna. (And the main hall of the venue was not the only place Estna colonized with her sprawling works; on the opening weekend, Vincent Honoré sported a hand-painted garment by the artist.)

Text by Kate Brown, Artnet