Alice Kask was born in Tallinn in 1976. She studied painting at the Estonian Academy of Arts where she obtained her masters in 2002, before immediately bursting onto the Estonian contemporary art scene with her once-in-a-generation talent.

Using tried and tested elements from figurative and anthropomorphic painting, Kask follows a conceptual style both underpinned and balanced by a surreal or absurd emotional impact. In her ambitious compositions, the human figure occupies a central role. But unlike the traditionally expressive depictions so characteristic of 20th century art, Kask’s figures are schematic, with featureless, even blank canvasses of humanity just waiting to be projected upon. Detached from a clear emotional meaning, her paintings gradually force the viewer to observe and consider their background in tandem with the wider environment through shadows, black holes, images rising out of the emptiness, and the juxtaposition of planes and spaces. The power of her work resides in its indivisibility from the physical object and the way in which the image comes into contact with – or is detached from – the underlying surface.

This tension between the detail and the whole, the insignificant and the absolute, is a powerful parable for the human condition and its inherent angst. Relying on thematic means of conception, the artist produces schematic and contrasting images that would appear to exist solely in a vacuum of their own making, the anonymous figures seemingly directed by an invisible force into gravity-defying poses or everyday stillness.

Kask has been exhibiting since 1997, including at the Prague Biennale (2007) and Painting in Process (2010) at Kumu, a show dedicated to the latest developments in painting. Her works are part of collections belonging to the Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum, the City of Tallinn and Neumünster Museum, among others.

She was awarded the Konrad Mägi Prize in 2003 and the Vaal Gallery’s Young Artist Prize in 2005.