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If I was a bird

If I was a bird

Oil on canvas
182 × 190 cm
2012
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Introduction

Kristi Kongi is an artist represented by the Kogo Gallery, who recently got a nomination for the artist’s salary in Estonia, which will allow her to devote to her work over the next three years.

It is an extraordinary opportunity to acquire a painting by Kristi Kong from the beginning of her creative career. The artwork is from Kristi Kong’s solo exhibition “I wish I Were a Bird” at the Hobusepea Gallery in Tallinn in 2012 that was prized with the Young Artist Award. The whole idea of the exhibition started from one single object – a toy box. The rotating figurines in the toy box are  the main characters of the show. The artist plays around with the ideas of being awake and sleep and that bends the sense of reality, loses the sense of time, concentrates the mind on the present moment. The painting shows a mixture of abstract and realistic depictions. Kristi Kong has moved towards a more abstract approach in her later works.

paintings

About the artist

Kristi Kongi (born 1985) is a painter and installation artist whose work focuses on colour, light, and space. Her bright coloured paintings often take the form of impressive installations made for specific settings creating effect that Estonian art critic Elnara Taidre described as “painting within a painting” or meta-painting. Besides painting on canvas, walls, floors and ceilings, she also uses various coloured materials such as fabric, plywood and acrylic plastic to create her installations. Her works are based on specific or imagined places, and her observations, emotions and memories. Kristi Kongi is using thorough research and experiments in painting where she trials various colours, light and shade. Artist refers to these experiments as “Exercises with the moon”. Her work is both poetic – this is also expressed in the titles – as well as systematic and analytical.

Kristi Kongi studied painting at Tartu Art College (2004–2008) and completed her master’s degree in painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2008–2011). She has been awarded the Young Artist Prize (2011), Sadolin Art Award (2013), Konrad Mägi Prize (2017), Annual Award of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia (2021) and in 2016 was nominated for the Köler Prize. Kristi Kongi is an associate professor in the painting department at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Occasionally she also works as a curator and exhibition designer.

See also Kristi Kongi on artists database of CCA (Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art)

More works by this artist

Oil on canvas, 70 x 67 cm cm, 2018
Oil on canvas, 120 x 110 cm, 2012
5800 €
Oil on canvas, 182 × 190 cm, 2012
Oil on canvas, 150 x 155 cm, 2014
8200 €
Oil on canvas, 35 x 35 cm, 2016
2100 €
Oil on canvas, 30 x 29 cm, 2016
1770 €
Oil on canvas, 35 x 35 cm, 2016
2100 €
Oil on canvas, 50 x 55 cm, 2016
3150 €
Oil on canvas, 95 x 80 cm, 2016
5250 €
Oil on canvas, 130 x 140 cm, 2017
8000 €
Oil on canvas, 44 x 37 cm, 2018
2430 €
Oil on canvas, 31 x 34 cm, 2019
1950 €
Oil on canvas, 47 x 44 cm, 2019
2730 €
Oil on canvas, 66 x 55 cm, 2019
3630 €
Oil on canvas, 70 x 67 cm, 2020
3400 €
Oil on canvas, 45 x 40 cm, 2021
2500 €
Oil on canvas, 95 x 100 cm, 2021
5800 €
Oil on canvas, 65 × 60 cm, 2019
3750 €

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