OTSE!
OTSE! – it is group of three still very young but incredibly ambitious, talented and promising artists who already earned the fame in Estonia – Nils Hint, Annika Kedelauk and Rainer Kaasik-Aaslav. A group OTSE! was created by three emerging artists a year and a half ago. During this short period of time young artists had held two personal exhibitions, have created an amount of works, which already have featured in various publications. Young artists’ group OTSE! was recognized by Estonian audience after their first exhibition.
The main artistic field of this group is conceptual jewellery and it is no secret that it is a dominant branch of art in Estonia. However artists don’t restrict themselves, they express creativity by connecting conceptual jewellery with contemporary medias, using installation, photography and video. Their exhibitions are complete, symbolic, in a way sacral shows, where presented works and space form a figurative story.
The exhibition “Personal Devil” focuses on personal problems of people in the modern society and their influence to the psyche of the individual and common approach of life. Conceptual works analyse such social problems as loans beyond one’s ability, cult of success, worship of beauty, cult of consuming, alcoholism etc. These issues are integrated into the works using untraditional ways: contrasts – willingness to take control over the world is opposed to the playful inner child, irony, or even grotesque – a new modern religion identified with consumerism, indulgence with the loan.
Each OTSE! member’s individual choice of style fills an exceptional creative character of the group. Rainer Kaasik-Aaslav expresses his ideas using quite extinct technology such as precious stone engraving technique. The most of the jewellery or objects are engraved out of stone. Annika develops her skills in classical goldsmithing and challenges herself technologically. Nils uses blacksmithing to realize his ideas. The traditional technology gets itself a new life as a conceptual work of art.
