Edith Karlson (1983) is an Estonian artist based in Tallinn. She has studied installation and sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA, 2006; MA, 2008). Concurrent to her practice, she teaches at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Karlson has been awarded with EAA Young Artist’s Prize (2006), Köler Prize People’s Choice Award (2015), and the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s main award (2020). She is among the recipients of the Estonian national artists’ salary between 2018–2020 and 2022–2024.
Karlson represents Estonia in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2024. Participating since 1997, this will be the fourteenth time Estonia exhibits at the Biennale di Venezia.
With an extensive list of exhibitions in Estonia and abroad, Karlson’s recent exhibitions have been shown at, inter alia, the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn (2021); Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2019, 2020); Tallinn Art Hall Gallery (2019–2020), KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn (2019–2020); Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany (2018); Tallinn City Gallery (2016); Amatorska gallery, London, United Kingdom (2015). She trained with British artist Sarah Lucas and participated in the preparations for her exhibitions and those of the Austrian art collective Gelitin (2011, 2013). Karlson assisted Lucas in the production of the artist’s solo exhibition for the British Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.
Moreover, in 2010 she participated in the Leonardo da Vinci programme, under the Lifelong Learning Programme funded by the European Commission, assisting Swedish artists Veronica Brovall and Emil Holmer in Berlin. Focused on the teaching and training needs of those involved, the programme aims to build a skilled and mobile workforce across Europe. In this connection, it is relevant to mention that she was also selected to exhibit at the 2008 Passage European forum for young artists, initiated in Brussels and Mechelen, Belgium.
