Summer 2019 will be the watercolour summer in Evald Okas Museum. Besides contemporary watercolour expositions, an overview is provided of the heritage, mainly through the works of Evald Okas, who often used the technique for capturing transient impressions or drafting larger paintings. In his case, the surprising aspect is seemingly self-evident mastering of the technique, its free, fresh and fast handling. Small overview of this side of his creation is based mainly on the family collection and starts already with pre-war works.

(exhibition spaces on II floor of the museum)

01.06. - 30.06. Sites and Places. Jaan Elken

The exhibition of works by Jaan Elken includes large-format paintings, where restrained colours are used for recreating powerful images of epic landscapes – volcanic plains of Iceland, stone deserts of the states of Nevada and Utah, or relief-rich abstractions of metropolis cities with exotic relief and/or skyline, such as San Francisco or New York.
On the paintings by Jaan Elken, urban culture and its signs on walls, surfaces and spaces have started to retreat towards subordination to the rules of eternity. „I have learned to appreciate the poetry of decay, flicker of light spots on the buildings, plateaus and vertical surfaces, in the forest and on the beach. There are rules, beside which the efforts of an artist to assert themselves are ridiculous./---/ In my opinion, it is worth to follow the creation of great painters operating with the methods of abstract art with sufficiently eclectic pictures, who use the senses stemming from reality, but mix it with natural laws and composition principles coming from higher dimensions, so that the maturing universe has strong level of recognition, while still stamped by the unique handwriting of the author.“

(attic hall, III floor)

01.06. – 23.06.
Aime Kuulbusch – sculpture.
Curator Mara Ljutjuk

The creation of a major Estonian sculptor Aime Kuulbusch through the decades until 2019. In the creation of her early period, both portraits as well as figural works, she was interested in opening the inner world of people, the psychological side of expression. In portraits, she aimed to capture the character of the model with minimal means and generalised form.
Beside realistic portraits and figures, she has always been attracted towards expression possibilities of abstract, minimalistic form. While portrait modelling provides some options for interpretation for her, creating artistic figures of abstract forms enables her to express more subjective feelings and thoughts, it is free and playful. She has used this style also for making sculptures for various international symposia.

(museum gallery, I floor)

27.06. - 17.07.

Luigi Cillo, Italy.
Curators Ave Tamme and Mara Ljutjuk

Luigi Cillo was extremely versatile arties. He graduated from Venice Academy of Fine Arts and participated in more than two hundred exhibitions in Italy, Europe, America and Australia. His frescoes, oil paintings, engravings, ceramics, glasswork, bronze and terracotta sculptures belong into many public and private collections all over the world.
Luigi Cillo participated in Venice Biennial four times, and represented Italy in São Paulo Biennial in Brazil. The artist died in 2011 at the age of 90.

(museum gallery, I floor)

03.07. - 28.07. “Overwhelming Possibilities”. Hanna-Christina Laupmaa, Eliis Laul, Elis Jurkatam, Martin Buschmann

This is the exhibition of four young photo artists, who want to share the fresh perspective with the viewers and bring photography forward in the current Estonian art scene. Through their works, the artists aim to interpret their role simultaneously in art and in photography.

(attic hall, III floor)

20.07. - 11.08.
"White Ladies" – exhibition of bridal dresses. Aldo Järvsoo and Tanel Veenre
Curator Mara Ljutjuk

Bride is probably the whitest lady of all. Wedding as a theatrical act, which is performed with special rites only once (or few times) in a lifetime. White as purity (therefore also doctors wear white overalls) and virginity, white as innocence and kindness. To be a bride means to be perfect for one night – almost unearthly, fabulous creature.
Interpretations of fashion designer Aldo Järvsoo and jewellery designer Tanel Veenre on the theme of wedding, purity and light.

(museum gallery, I floor)

20.07. - 11.08.
Urve Küttner “Amber”
(Dedicated to 90th anniversary of Lennart Meri and "Hõbevalge").
Curator Harry Liivrand

On 29 March 2019, one of the best promoters and interpreters of Estonian history Lennart Meri would have celebrated his 90 birthday. The first solo exhibition of outstanding jewellery artist Urve Küttner, who has received the Ede Kurrel Award twice, in Evald Okas Museum in Haapsalu in summer 2019, is homage to the glorification of amber in the popular book "Hõbevalge" by Meri, which has inspired the artist.
As a symbolic birthday present, Küttner has designed 9 amber and silver flowers as the installation "Flowers for Lennart Meri". Additionally, the artist exposes new jewellery and amber objects as talismans from our ecological past. Küttner has worked with amber for approximately half a century and has become one of the most talented and original user of this natural material, therefore the new series is an exciting logical continuation of the former creation. In the design of the exhibition, Küttner has used also her earlier installations "Last Supper" and " A+E" , as well as quotations from "Hõbevalge", which speak of the historical importance of amber as well as its healing properties.

(museum gallery, I floor)

03.08. - 15.09.
"Interplay"
Curator Kati Kerstna

This year the Hot Glass Symposium concentrates on the interaction of glass and light, and research and exposition of its optics, transparency, reflections, refractory and light absorbing properties. We also deal with the opposite effect – how light, its intensity, movement, shadows etc influence glass; perceptional size of a glass object, its distinguishing from the background, emotional spectacular liveliness etc.
Another topic is mutual and common effect of illuminated glass object and the surrounding environment – reflections and light spots emitted / transferred from the glass object, and other way round – reflections / deformations / movements of the environment on the glass object. We study, how to transmit emotions, thoughts and/or messages with this extremely strong mutual interaction, how to use and expose the magic of the material in most versatile way, and how to make the glass object visually and essentially perceptively much larger than it actually is.
In the exhibition we expose glass objects and light solutions completed within the framework of the symposium.
The symposium and exhibition brings together professional glass artists from Germany, Turkey, Latvia, Estonia etc.

(attic hall, III floor)

13.08. – 15.09.
Estonian watercolour in 20th and 21st century.
Curators Mai Levin and Mari Roosvalt

The 22th international symposium and exhibition of the European Confederation of Watercolour Societies (ECWS) is held in Haapsalu on 12-18 August. As the event will bring together almost 200 artists from all over Europe, it is the best time to expose Estonian watercolour paintings at the same time in Evald Okas Museum. The selection of works from 20th century provides a review into the past, and this part of the exposition includes watercolours from the private collection belonging to Mart Lepp. The second part of the exhibition studies the technique of watercolour painting from contemporary point of view and in the context of contemporary art. The participating artists using more modern watercolour techniques are Leonhard Lapin, Marko Mäetamm, Jaan Elken, Liisa Kruusmägi, Britta Benno, Tiiu Pallo-Vaik, Mall Paris, Marje Üksine, Naima Neidre, Mari Roosvalt, Illimar Paul etc.

(museum gallery, I floor)