SANTORINI 2
Why do I value painting above all? In my view, painting is the best way to connect the hand, the heart and the sky. Painting is magic. It is a link with heavenly powers. It was thus in the Stone Age, and it is the same today. In 2009 my wife and I flew to the island of Santorini where we rented a flat in Oia village. For some time I had felt a pull towards that mystical island. In front of the house with cylindrical arches was a kidneyshaped pool. Its terrace offered views of a cubist village in the south and a large empty field behind the building, with gentle slopes towards the north until the sea.
The pool terrace became the focus of our trip. We sunbathed, read, my drawings and watercolours were born there. We took long walks from there, and I made quick sketches. Ten Santorini watercolours saw the light of day by the pool. These, in turn, developed into acrylic paintings, and this is how I became a painter. It was probably the remarkable spirit of Atlantis that evoke an artist in me. Colours, composition and style just emerged from somewhere. True, already 40 years ago I could do watercolours, and also dabbled in installations as a supplement of the architect’s job. On Santorini I clearly felt that some sort of hidden information inside me was trying to find an output. And it burst out in painting, on that magical island. I have developed the style established on Santorini in motifs of Tallinn’s old town, Manhattan, Morocco, Andalusia, Sicily and Malta, although Santorini will always be the foundation where I keep returning in my search for new motifs.
SANTORINI 3
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SANTORINI 4
I painted the ensembles I saw to suit myself. It means that an architect has his own dreams, and he is lucky to realise 10 per cent at best. When I paint historical buildings, I imagine I am an ancient architect who once built them. I never paint exactly what I see. Instead, I provide the generalised structures with their own style by means of colours, new windows and doors, and something else. Painting can therefore also be a project, more precisely an ideal project. DISCOVER MORE www.vilenkunnapu.pri.ee
