Merike Estna

Karen Huber Gallery presents the exhibition Talk to me softly, when the world is fading away by Merike Estna.

If for Kate Millet the personal is political, for Merike Estna the personal is pictorial.That is how she builds the narrative ofTalk to me softly, when the world is fadingaway:as the artist’s intimate self-portrait. Estna manages to transfer a homey at-mosphere to the exhibition space. The rooms of museums and galleries, on occa-sion, seem to us cold and distant owing to that aura of estrangement that, never-theless, the artist succeeds in overcoming.Talk to me softly, when the world is fadingawayis a safe space, a place of warmth and care.The room’s center is occupied by a carved wooden double bed. Each of the bed’scorners is crowned by a hand holding one of the four symbols repeated throughoutthe exhibition: the sun, the moon, the diamond, and the flower. Likewise presentthroughout the rest of the pieces are those figurative elements that Merike Estnachooses to represent balance, the life cycle, strength, and beauty, respectively. Likesomeone who constructs her own pagan religion, Merike’s work is saturated withher own symbols that, repeatedly, take on a life of their own in her particular uni-verse. Symbols of a worldview in which birth and death meet.Eight paintings make up the rest of the exhibition. By superimposing layers of paintthat are veiled and unveiled, figuration accompanies the abstract in a festival ofcolor and texture. Skulls and candles are also repetitive figures in the artist’s imag-es, in addition to the hand. The hands are caresses and tenderness; they are thewomen who in silent labor weave the networks of care that sustain us. They are thehands of those who embroider, carve, and mold crafts, without which we would notunderstand Mexicanness, the cultural identity in which birth and death, once again,meet in order to celebrate.Between candles and tiny skulls, the Mexican matria joins the visual argot of MerikeEstna, who offers us a tribute to the birthplace of her little one. Asituated motheringthat asks for sweetness and surrenders to affection, in a world of extreme violenceand an uncertain future.Talk to me softly, when the world is fading awayis the searchfor an intimate refuge for being close to those we love.

— Verónica Guerrero