Hello, Dear Visitor!
I am an artist Aili Vint from Estonia, Europe. I come from the middle of the last century (born in 1941), but still paint the Sea — the old-fashioned way. Miles and miles of it, from the home shore to the horizon. I am lucky, as I have the Sea as a source of inspiration and my model for over 70 years. The Sea has my endless gratitude forever. I don’t know anyone else who through the constantly changing times would stay the same forever.
Heie Treier, Estonian Art Critic: Woman & Sea. Kunst Magazine, 74/ 21 1989: Aili Vint has not tied herself to any particular line, although her work is full of quotations of pop and opp-art, glow in light sculptures and series of colored etchings. But she always keeps returning to the Sea. The Sea is in eternal motion and the details, which the artist perceives at a blink, - something mesmerizing, existential and quintessential, - is gone with the next moment. All that remains is an experience of a person who is able to revive and magnify this on a canvas. his is an extremely direct approach to the subject of art and the result allows contact with the most diverse audience - a rather unusual phenomenon in contemporary art at all.
Kunstiteadlane Heie Treier vt. Kunst 74/21 1989 . Aili Vint loob kunsti pühalt. Meremaalijana on ta osanud anda rohkem tähendusi kui keegi teine eesti kunstis A.V. on hetkepüüdja. Looduses on kõik liikvel ning see, mida kunstnikusilm tabab ühel ootamatul hetkel, midagi eksistentsiaalset ja olemuslikku, on järgmisel hetkel kadunud. Jääb vaid kogemus, mida tundis üksainus inimene, kelle võimuses on hetke taaselustada, ürgset looduse ilu väärtustada ja võimendada.Tegemist on äärmislt vahetu lähenemisega kunstiobjektile ja tulemus võimaldab kontakti kõige erinevama vaatajaskonnaga – üsna ebatavaline nähtus kaasaja kõrgkunstis üldse.
AFTER THE RAIN 1982 Oil on canvas 100 x 115 cm, artist’s collection
Aili Vint: I am the woman, who has hopelessly fallen in love the Sea. How does one paint a portrait of ones secret love? — As I start seeing the details that fascinate me in a given mood of the Sea, they are gone in the next moment.
how to paint the portrait of the sea
Estonian Writer Jaan Kruusvall: The world that Aili Vint creates painting the Sea is fragile and elusive, easily vulnerable. Just like the rest of the world. Like the inner world of a person.
a true story: “YOUR PICTURE SAVED MY LIFE,YOU KNOW”
By Aili Vint, from The Seabook
Once upon time, when I was painting stony and translucent water, I suddenly received shocking news that a young acquaintance of mine had taken her own life. While painting the picture, I remember wondering whether this profound angst I felt at the time would remain trapped in that picture.
Years later I received an answer. — A complete stranger came up to me, started scolding me for no longer painting the sea. Then she went on, searching for words: ”Your picture saved my life, you know…”She told me that she had wanted to end her life, to give herself to the sea. But a friend took her to the Kadriorg Art Museum to see one of my seascapes. The painting had mesmerized her, calling her back again and again. It offered her unaccountable consolation, until it finally calmed her down. This painting was The Stony Sea.
STONY SEA 1976 Oil on canvas, 92 x 115 cm, Kumu Art Museum +
SEA & ME
The Sea just is, even after the most ferocious storm it calms down, it’s gentle and tender again.— Just like me! — I am the Sea.
I am the Sea.—The Sea is painting me.
have you considered how similar the soul of the Sea and that of a Woman is? Really, remember yourself…
NB! In the subsequent big collage my small Pop-Art gouache paintings transform the same big than my oil paintings! Through those images I tell the story of the sensuality of the Sea. They are like Souls of the Sea, just like ghosts in the exhibition room that appear above my seas for a moment and disappear the next. If you look at the huge collages in the order they are placed in my website, then you can see them, and “read” them, like a novel, which the pictures all together tell.
you can see the invisible connect between nature and our senses
When contemplating the sensuousness of nature as expressed in the Sea's psyche, one can see the invisible connect between nature and our senses. Therefore, there is a subtle between my seascapes, my sensual abstracts, and depictions of the female form. Through those images I tell the story of the sensuality of the Sea. The sea has innumerable moods. Sometimes it’s a want on trickster, sometimes inhumanly cruel, sometimes just indifferent.This comes naturally to the sea.
My blessing (and curse) is that I have many styles and ways of expression. This is the main reason why it's so difficultfor me just to choose one. Upon reviewing the work I've done throughout my lifetime, I had a new idea of recyclingthem – of putting them together as very large collages in a totally new awareness. I have combined my tiny abstract gouache paintings and sensual etchings with my seascapes to create huge new works. Now they are as big as my seascapes. In my installations they represent the moods and whims of the sea. My goal is to reveal the soul of the sea. They represent the moods and whims of the sea.
with my guash paintings I tell the story of the sensuality of the Sea, they are like Souls of the Sea
…like Silence before a storm
…a new Storm is coming
… and we get Quiet again
