Exhibition > Past > SEB Gallery

SEB Gallery 16.09.2009-30.10.2009

La Dolce Vita

Tiina Tammetalu’s paintings this time – fragmental records of moments, faces, scenes and details – are linkable primarily through the author who, when travelling in different places or being at home in Estonia has memorized the experienced moments recognized with a certain “la-dolce-vita attitude” in her senses and later conveyed some of them on canvas in the quietude of her studio.

According to the author “La Dolce Vita” is very personal. The material for these paintings originates from the self-indulgent, sybaritic lifestyle that the author practices from time to time and where hedonism is the only rule to follow. While letting herself passively go with the blissful flow of life, a variety of scenes, smells, faces, landscapes and architecture has settled in her senses; and although geographically and time-wise of rather fragmentary and diverse range they can still definitely be linked through the author’s person who has always found herself repeating: “La Dolce Vita…” in her mind when recognizing the “sweet experiences”…

If one is looking for associations with Federico Fellini’s great movie from the 1960ies with the same heading, it must be mentioned that the movie “La Dolce Vita” was Fellini’s step from neorealism to the world of artistic movies. Taking into consideration Tammetalu’s background of fundamental-realistic “Estonian Landscapes” and nude paintings, that parallel speaks for itself.
Unlike in her series “Estonian Landscapes” where the author has considered the specific geographical location most worthy of depicting, it has lost its importance in this series. Here, in “La Dolce Vita” it is the mood, the emotion that is most important – that to some point, when interpreted into visual form, still associates with fragments of places. Thus, on top of one another there are layers of childhood Tartu, Western Estonia and her Tallinn studios on the pictures, combined with memories from Chicago, Shanghai, Yaffo, Jerusalem and many other places that have provided happy moments.

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