Christel Allik graduated from Tallinn Academy of Arts in 1996 as a textile artist; she is a member of Estonian Textile Artists’ Association and Estonian Watercolour Artists’ Association; free-lancer at the moment; actively participating in exhibitions since 1995 – is always obligatory to mention in initial introduction. However, in Christel Allik’s case altogether different things should be focused on – her being one of the most emotional and spontaneous authors by her creative nature that Haus Gallery represents.

Emotionality is indeed the key word when characterizing Christel Allik: her way of embracing the world around her with sparkling eyes, capturing even the slightest detail and nuance as something miraculous and unique, and transferring that into the world of painting – that is her path in art. Only she can absent-mindedly step into the gallery on a sombre winter’s day, have a cup of tea in her modest way and at the next moment be moved to tears when recalling a tiny snowdrop that greeted her in the front yard a week ago… The artist collects smells and colours, preserving them inside herself like in a bottomless bag where chaos of emotions prevails – and always finds something exalting at the right moment.

Nature as an infinite source of inspiration offers Allik a lot, more than to the most of us. The endlessly depicted landscapes and flowers are not an exhausted subject here. Anyone who takes the trouble of looking deeper into her works becomes convinced of that. The uniqueness of her approach is the very thing that makes her art interesting and different, and Christel Allik dares to be unique. An artist’s work can only originate from something that already exists - as reality in the surrounding world or as a fantasy in the thoughts. She can introduce us her way of interpreting the world and urge us to think, see, feel and listen along.

This time the artist displays about twenty landscapes, completed in the studio directly prior to the exhibition. According to her these are paintings of the emotions absorbed over time. The images of actual places that have been real to her have not inspired the artist to use merely brown, black or green that would be so characteristic of landscapes, but quite a different palette – one that emerges from somewhere deep inside. The memories of experienced emotions make her pictures radiant; the colours vibrate on the borderline between the true and the cognitive. We may always remember a sunset as a warm evening hour and carry that golden glow inside for long. A melancholy morning may remain cold and bleak in your memory; you imagine yourself standing on the balcony for hours, holding a cup of tea that cooled down long ago. These are the colours of emotions that accompany us every minute of our lives. These are the moments that are depicted in Christel Allik’s paintings where the viewer may discover familiar undertones – days or minutes when the perception of life bore the greatest resemblance namely to such landscape as the artist has put on canvas.

Speaking about each creative nature having something that captures him or her and what he or she wants to fascinate the audience with, we can hear Christel Allik say: dare to admire nature, dare to live by its rhythms and you’ll see how the smallest breeze on open fields may turn into an eternity in your soul.