The title – Dark River – refers to the undercurrents of the subconscious which, while not clearly definable, still exert their influence on us. The imagery of water, and its untameable nature, permeates the exhibition.

Riin Pallon’s (b. 1978) paintings are a symbiosis of conscious and unconscious attempts to reach out and grasp, with the mind and with the paintbrush, a fitting form for the ideas and feelings that matter to the artist. The paintings can be seen as poetic, emotionally loaded landscapes. The paintings are exhibited alongside verses that spontaneously evolved in the process of painting.

Kairi Orgusaar (b. 1969) employs a process of painting that, in itself, is a freeform trip into the subconscious. It begins with a flash of vision, then moves along on a journey where shapes emerge from the fog; finally, the painter arrives at an unpredictable destination. Contrasts and accords of colours, movement of lines, sudden accents work to filter fleeting emotions from the stream of time, giving them permanence; these snapshots then take their place in the subconscious, from where their echo subtly acts on our perceptions and senses. The viewer is invited to join the journey across the strange terrain of symbolic spaces, to dream, to create – to gaze into the dark river.