Splash

Mall Nukke (1964) graduated the Estonian Academy of Arts in 1992 as a printmaker, emerging swiftly and markedly as an artist who understood (Estonian) pop culture. Her pop art was, as is characteristic of the movement, both luxuriously abundant in colour, nihilistic as well as sarcastic in undertone, ranging from collages and photomontages to mixed-media works. Nukke identifies herself as a multimedia artist but it is oil painting that has recently become closest to her soul. Nukke is now trying to find the perfect painting technique, mostly via an examination of light. Chiaroscuro has been the etalon for assessing an artist's painterly skill throughout the history of art. Therefore, it makes sense that Nukke has chosen to portray both water and the sky, including clouds, subjects that give plenty of opportunity to practice and showcase one's mastery of capturing light. Nukke's colour palette is still powerful but she has abandoned the poisonously glistening and sickly sweet colour scale for a more natural one. Same can be said about her subjects, the often grotesque and sometimes almost incomprehensible pop characters have given way to real people, in a word, sincerity.