Vello Vinn

Vello Vinn from Saaremaa represents graphic art and only graphic art (not, for example, graphic art and painting). He belongs to the top of the golden age of Estonian graphic art in the late Soviet period. He has a love of very strict symmetrical composition, exceptional attention to detail and a humour that cancels it all out, distinguishing his work from that of female graphic artists who appreciated more soulful subjects. One should look at Vello Vinn’s work from a distance to see the overall composition and symmetry, and then slowly very close up to pick out clever elements, isolated textual cues, etc., which highly indexed the more soulful themes. Vello Vinn’s art was for a long time in the background during the period of the Republic of Estonia, until the young art scholars Elnara Taidre and Andreas Trossek ‘rediscovered’ it by publishing articles and a book, after which Vello Vinn was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of Cultural Endowment in 2020 (‘Influenced by the aesthetics of both pop and psychedelic art, and with an artistic language that twists words and images, he has tackled issues that are as relevant today as they were fifty years ago.’).