The minimalist title of Juss Piho’s exhibition ‘Choice III’ contrasts with his concise paintings, which are extensively exhibited on the two floors of Haus Gallery. ‘Each exhibition is nothing more than another selection of works,’ says Piho, commenting simply and unpretentiously on the title.

Juss Piho is an example of an artist who prefers to be sparse with words, letting his paintings do the talking. Piho’s deeply philosophical inner thought spaces are opened up by the characters in his works. The artist’s talent is phenomenal – his paintings, each depicting an intriguing, carefully selected, and composed fragment of life as if it were a movie frame, provoking hundreds of possible further imaginings. When interacting with Piho’s painting moments, the desire arises to finish telling the stories the artist has hinted at, to find their beginnings, endings or middle parts, forgetting oneself to stand curiously in someone else’s world. It is a curiosity that the artist encourages, as he pulls back the curtains on all those ‘windows’ through which it is polite to take a long, self-indulgent look at his exhibition. Especially at this exhibition.

Haus Gallery is exhibiting recent paintings by Juss Piho.  The selection is emphatically large format. In the gallery’s rather chamber-like exhibition halls, the works are positioned at the level of the viewer’s walkway – gazes wander at the height of the pictorial characters’ world, doors open invitingly to where it is physically possible to step. The works fill the spaces with their rhythms and stories to such an extent that there is no distinction between the real and the imagined. The artist’s imagination becomes the viewer’s own. Every visitor to the exhibition is here as a welcome co-creator, within whom the idea started by the artist is further realised, transformed, and led to new syntheses.

Juss Piho (1963) already started as an artist in the late 1970s, first known as a cartoonist and then as a personal and acclaimed book illustrator. Today, Piho is a member of the Estonian Painters’ Association and the Estonian Artists’ Association. Piho is a painter with a distinguished domestic and international exhibition career, whose recognisably very own world is captivating for its sense of composition, figurative narrative, and Nordic colouring.