Under My Skin

The exhibition Under My Skin focuses on bodies through the female gaze. Here, the body does not appear as a static or closed form, but rather as a constantly changing and reactive surface through which the world intrudes – crawls under the skin. The skin acts simultaneously as a shield, a boundary and a vulnerable point of contact – a site where fear, violence and intimacy are inscribed. The female gaze here signifies not merely who is looking, but also how someone observes. It creates a space for presence, recognition and vulnerability, yet not a comfortable one.

The revealed subject allows the viewer to come close but does not pose for them. She exists, experiences and feels. The body here is not an erotic object but a space for observing without the need to possess or judge – a space where the personal and the collective, the familiar and the alien, the figurative and the dreamlike, the visible and the hidden converge. It is precisely in this in-between state that the uncanny can emerge: arising not from something directly threatening, but from the sudden estrangement of the familiar. It occurs the moment the safe distance between the observer and the observed dissolves, when the subject begins to look back.

BIOS

Tiiu Kirsipuu (1957) is a sculptor based in Tallinn. She graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts, Sculpture Department, in 1983. Kirsipuu’s work encompasses both realistic and abstract forms, and she employs a wide variety of materials to realise her ideas. Kirsipuu has held numerous solo exhibitions in Estonia and abroad and has participated in group exhibitions. She has created many works for public spaces, curated exhibitions, conducted workshops and participated in sculpture symposiums. Her work has been recognised with the Anton Starkopf Sculpture Prize (2010), the Kristjan Raud Prize (2010), the City of Viljandi’s annual award and Badge of Merit (2024) and the University of Tartu’s Badge of Merit (2024). In 2019, the Republic of Estonia awarded her the Order of the White Star, 4th Class.

Heeyoung Noh (1995) is a South Korean painter based in London. She graduated from the Fine Art Department of Glasgow School of Art (MA, 2024) and specialised in Western Paintings at Seoul’s Sungshin Women’s University (BA, 2019). Her nude, anonymised female figures epitomise the complexities and precarities of diasporic identity, speaking to Noh’s own lived experience of otherness as an East Asian woman residing in England. Water droplets serve as a visual stand-in for these subconscious scars of systemic, state-sponsored oppression and a pervading, patriarchal social structure, silently passed down from grandmothers to mothers, mothers to daughters during each scrubbing session. Noh was the recipient of THE TAGLI Mentorship Award 2024, presented in collaboration with the Folco Collection. 

Liisa Nurklik (2000) is a painter based in Tallinn. She has graduated from the Painting Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA, 2026). Her practice focuses on abstract painting and the exploration of the possibilities of colour, surface and composition, seeking the meanings and connections embedded within them. She has presented solo exhibitions, If I Were-a-Person at EKA Library (2025) and Wandering at EKA Gallery (2026), and she has participated in several group exhibitions.

Marleen Suvi (1998) is a painter based in Tallinn. She graduated from the Contemporary Art Programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 2023) and from the Painting Department (BA, 2020). Suvi’s artistic centre of gravity is the human being in their private realm. Her works are defined by a poetic tension between emotionally charged themes and a technically refined, materially experimental approach. Suvi often draws the viewer disarmingly close to her subjects, yet through the framework of painting and its edges, she upholds a sense of distance and restraint. Marleen Suvi’s recent exhibitions include Good Dogs and Main Basement at Artrovert Gallery, curated by Aleksander Metsamärt (2026) and Water, Greenery and a Beautiful Face at Draakon Gallery, curated by Kerly Ritval (2025). In 2024, Suvi was awarded the Helju Rossmann Schneider Scholarship.

Kaisa Maasik (1994) is an artist and curator based in Tallinn. Since 2024, she has worked as the gallerist at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She graduated from the Contemporary Art Programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 2021) and from the Photography Department (BA, 2017). In 2019, she furthered her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in the Praxis curatorial master’s programme. Maasik’s projects are rooted in noticing and collecting, bringing together everyday observations alongside objects and experiences of others. Her solo exhibition, The Lightness of Being – created as part of the Young Tartu exhibition series – recently concluded at the Tartu Art Museum’s project space. In 2020, Maasik was awarded the Wiiralt Scholarship for blending her artistic and curatorial practice. 

TEAM

Artists: Tiiu Kirsipuu, Heeyoung Noh, Liisa Nurklik, Marleen Suvi
Curator: Kaisa Maasik
Texts: Kaisa Maasik
Graphic design: Else Lagerspetz
Project coordination and production: Greete Altrof, Liina Raus
Installation: Siim Asmer
Communication: Karin Kahre, Else Lagerspetz
Photos: Nele Tammeaid (opening), Marje Eelma (documentation)
Translation and language editing: Kaisa Maasik, Karin Kahre, Refiner Translations

FUNDING AND SUPPORT

The exhibition is funded by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the City of Tartu.