SIIRI JÜRIS | as the day fades into midnight hues

SIIRI JÜRIS
as the day fades into midnight hues
11/11–17/12 2022

Siiri Jüris' first solo exhibition with the gallery. as the day fades into midnight hues explored human relationality and cohabitation through the act of playing. Game culture and folklore are rich in variation – not only are games ever-changing in time, but different age and social groups and even neighboring villages might have their own versions of the same game. How widely a game has been played in the world is reflective of human diversity – many are characteristic to a specific small area, while others are universal. In addition, each game type has its own function, be that entertainment, celebration, ritual, or creating unity and a sense of belonging in a community. Many games that were popular centuries ago had belief-related, ritualistic, and magical origins. Swinging and tugging games were believed to ensure agricultural prosperity and good health, and adult cultural customs were often carried over to children’s play. Games generally have more entertaining purposes today.

The series of paintings in this exhibition are conceptually and technically a play – a play on childhood nostalgia and on the need to find footing in dubious times by exploring one’s past. They are also a play with the painted matter itself.

Siiri Jüris (b. 1992) is an Estonian-Swedish painter, currently living and working in Uppsala, Sweden. She holds an MFA from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (2021) and an MFA in painting from the University of Tartu (2017). Jüris has participated in many group exhibitions, mainly in Estonia, but also in Sweden, Slovakia, and Lithuania. She was one of the finalists for the Young Painter Prize in both 2019 and 2021, and in 2020 she won the “Young Tartu” competition. Jüris’ solo exhibition matter that (em)bodies was held at the Tartu Art Museum in February 2021.