Toomas Vint’s painter’s
career has lasted for over 40 years – but you cannot say that his first works
were dramatically different from this exhibition here. Again and again Vint
seems to bounce back into the net of transcendentalism, landscapes (and
metaphysical landscapes), loneliness, paradox, terror, eroticism and
conception. All this has been fuelling his excitement for creating – as much as
his meticulous painting technique and attractive motifs have put the public under his spell. But what is it that Vint aims for in
his work?
This exhibition seems to
be probably his most private one yet. Without a doubt – all the works of a great artist should be more or less personal, it
cannot be any other way, but it seems that this time Vint has painted first of
all for himself. The landscapes he lays down for us don’t explain themselves as
simply as before when summery greens and sunsets on the pine-trees of Nomme
were an experience that any viewer could easily make their own.
This time the scenes
contain more fantasy, mysticism and hidden elements. Their origin remains
unknown to us, we haven’t experienced those situations. But they are not overly
fairy-tale-like, out-of-this-realm landscapes. No, they seem almost
straightforward and intimate, sincere and familiar. This is how those
landscapes raise above the usual and start to feel almost as metaphors.
Although a landscape has
always been the means of expressing „something else“ for Toomas Vint, he has
never abandoned the landscape itself. Those green, purple, yellow and blue
landscapes have never been mere metaphors or conceptions, they are what they
depict. And interestingly enough, it is not always just „nature“ that Vint
portrays in them.
On one hand, for Vint the
landscape is a possibility to articulate his fantasies, strains, dreams, ideas,
visions and so on. On the other hand – landscapes enable him to explore such
inaccessible phenomena as a mood bestowed by the evening light, an eerie
atmosphare of a foggy meadow, circumstance created by a row of trees, the architectonics of the sky – and so on. In
spite of the fact that Vint seems so cool and composed, there is also a good
dose of romantic in him. To be more exact – it is not a romantic speaking
through Vint’s landscapes – it is a passionate human being. His passion goes
towards landscape, metaphysics and the art of painting.