Merike Estna
1980, Estonia
Merike Estna (b. 1980) lives and works in Tallinn and Mexico City. She is to represent Estonia at 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. A participant in the performance art scene associated with Academia Non Grata, an alternative art school in Estonia in the early 2000s, Estna later acquired formal art education at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where she graduated with a BA in painting and a MA in interdisciplinary arts. Estna relocated to London in 2007, where she completed an MFA programme in Art Practice at Goldsmiths College in 2009.
Estna’s practice is primarily focused on the processes of painting, approaching the artwork as an integral part of life rather than it being about life. Borrowing patterns and colour combinations from applied arts and crafts, vocabularies which traditionally have not been accepted in the visual language of painting, her work challenges the masculine territory of painting and questions the strict separation between the two discourses. Initially applying patterns and treatments to canvases, Estna gradually progressed to cover clothes, objects, and entire spaces as her research into colour and acts of painting expanded. In 2026, Merike Estna will represent Estonia at the 61st Venice Biennale, further solidifying her position in contemporary painting discourse.
Estna’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions including “The House of Leaking Sky'”- Estonian National Pavilion at Venice Biennale, “Ocean”, curated by Maria Arusoo, Tartu Art Museum, “Peradam”, Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2024), “Analog Mountain”, Margot Samel Gallery, New York (2023), “Soil Will Not Contain Our Love”, Kai Art Center, Tallinn (2022), “Talk to Me Softly, When the World is Fading Away”, Karen Huber Gallery, Mexico City (2022), “Memory Shop”, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at Fundación Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, Mexico (2022), “Bitácoras”, at Fundación Casa Wabi, Puerto Escondido, Mexico (2022), “The House of the Tragic Poet”, Bosse & Baum, London (2021), “Borderlessness”, with Jaime Lobato, Hasanlu Armastajad, Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2021), and others.
