born in 2003
Her practice explores material memory through painting, leather and archival photographs. References to personal and cultural archives, including her grandmother’s photographic materials and Estonian ethnographic motifs, are used
with restraint and transformed through material processes.
kertuliisas@gmail.com
Instagram: @kes.kls @kertuliisa
2025—2026
Young Painter Prize Exhibition, Stasys Museum, Lithuania
2025
Young Painter Prize Exhibition, Art Academy of Latvia, Riga
2025
EKA Grad show TASE ‘25, Designers’ House, Rävala pst 8
2025
Vaal galerii kevadoksjon
2024
Put your pants on, this is an exhibition, EKA Gallery, group show
2024-2025
Belong - Europa Gallery, Dublin, group show
2024
I lár báire - Common Ground, A4 Sounds, Dublin, group show
2023
Installation, New Mountains, Põhjala Factory
2023
Installation, Gaze like candles, ArtDepoo, solo show
2022
Viimsi Art School Alumni Exhibition, Artium, group show
2021
Solo Exhibition, Käpik, ArtDepoo, solo show
ART EDUCATION
2025—
Estonian Academy of Arts, MA Contemporary Art
2022 - 2025
Estonian Academy of Arts, BA Fine Arts, Painting
2024
National College of Art and Design
2011—2021
Viimsi Art School
RESIDENCY
2024
Residency at Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA)
- Body and contact with the floor No. 1
Vegetable tanned leather, wood, roof of the St Mary's Cathedral, polymer clay
146 x 52 x 85 cm
Woodworking supervisor: Oliver Kanniste
Leatherwork supervisor: Dima Maletskiy
2025I explore the removal of utility from applied art by intertwining archival materials and corporeality. The initial impulse came from twentieth century Estonian wrestling
Estonian Academy of Arts
photographs, where intimacy meets restraint. In my practice, I am interested in the ability of material to retain traces of touch, scratches, and time. It remembers.
Something soft has stiffened through tension and sways in a state of eternal suspension, on the uncertain threshold between humanity and animality.
Photos: Elo Valner
- Performance No. 1
Recycled oil paintings, vegetable-tanned leatherwork, readymade objects
2025The installation is entirely composed of reused and repurposed materials, forming a slightly surreal representation of performance. Performance is familiar to everyone as a moment that demands effort or concentration. The state of anticipation, focus, and striving follows us across all areas of life. Most of our time is spent preparing for it, while the performance itself lasts only briefly. Then comes the next one, someone else's performance, which may overwrite or reinterpret the previous one, repeat it, or place it in a different context.
Bachelor’s Thesis in Fine Arts, Painting
EKA Grad show TASE ‘25
Archival photographs of athletes are painted onto oil paintings sourced from an antique store, where their original performative value had seemingly been discarded. Worn sports equipment, which might otherwise gather dust in a basement, becomes a suggestive element in the exhibition. The leather relief, crafted using traditional techniques, takes the viewer back to a time when the relationship between art and intricate craftsmanship was a part of everyday life. Everything repeats, but always a little differently.
Photos: Silver Mikiver
- ETNO collection
Vegetable tanned leather - apron, shoes. Latex coat.
2025The human body, which has always needed protection.
Estonian Academy of Arts
This artwork was developed with the guidance of Piret Puppart
The bonnet and the apron – two items a married woman was always required to wear – seemed to me like extensions of the skin. When something is part of your daily life for so long, it begins to feel as though it grows onto you.
Since red is traditionally a protective color, I chose pink, because over time, bright red tones lose their intensity in fabrics and become softer. I used latex, a modern material that protects the body from everything. At the same time, it creates a similar sweaty sensation that Estonians experienced while doing hard labor.
Photos: Silver Mikiver
- Closer to the core
- 2025
Estonian Academy of Arts
This artwork was developed with the guidance of Alice Kask,
Sirja-Liisa Eelma
Residency at RHA and spring semester at NCAD 2024 (Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, Dublin)
- Completed work:
- Who did the darkness invite into my room?
- Oil on canvas
- Whom he took with him today?
- Oil on canvas
- Fire screens
- Wood, glass, embroidery
Autumn semester 2023
"Me, the other and someone else"
Waiting I
160 x 160 cm
Oil on canvas
Waiting II
160 x 200 cm
Oil on canvas
160 x 160 cm
Oil on canvas
Waiting II
160 x 200 cm
Oil on canvas
- Sister
- 70 x 60 cm
- Oil on canvas
- 2023
- The painting was madeas part of the "traditional painting techniques" course
- “Something to hold” is a series of paintings exploring objects and fabrics. Noticing how different generations hold onto things is a window into understanding how personal and cultural values evolve over time.