Martin Saar

Last updated
Martin Saar in 2008 Martin Saar, 2008.jpg
Martin Saar in 2008

Martin Saar (born 30 April 1980) is an Estonian artist who currently lives and works between New York City and Tallinn, Estonia.

Contents

Life and work

Saar was born in Tallinn, Estonia.

He gained his MA in drawing at the New York Academy of Art in 2014 after studying at Kevade Street Art School and in 2002 graduating from Estonian Academy of Arts.

Saar's work encompasses mosaics, paintings and watercolors as well as digital collages and videos. His work is informed by his love for music, which is translated into radical colors and expressive gestures. Saar's tile series is an example of his evocative use of brushstroke condensed onto a small scale while his large-scale monochromatic paintings reflect on memories of his family life before Estonia's independence in 1991.

Saar gained recognition as an artist for his mosaic paintings of New York celebrities, which were featured in The New York Times .

New York Mosaic. NewyorkMartinSaar.jpg
New York Mosaic.

General references

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallinn</span> Capital and largest city of Estonia

Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of about 461,000 and administratively lies in the Harju maakond (county). Tallinn is the main governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located 187 km (116 mi) northwest of the country's second largest city, Tartu; however, only 80 km (50 mi) south of Helsinki, Finland, also 320 km (200 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, 300 km (190 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, and 380 km (240 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical name Reval.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Close</span> American painter (1940–2021)

Charles Thomas Close was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very large format camera. He adapted his painting style and working methods in 1988, after being paralyzed by an occlusion of the anterior spinal artery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African-American art</span> Visual arts of the people of African descent in the United States of America

African-American art is a broad term describing visual art created by African Americans. The range of art they have created, and are continuing to create, over more than two centuries is as varied as the artists themselves. Some have drawn on cultural traditions in Africa, and other parts of the world where the Black diaspora is found, for inspiration. Others have found inspiration in traditional African-American plastic art forms, including basket weaving, pottery, quilting, woodcarving and painting, all of which are sometimes classified as "handicrafts" or "folk art".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Feldstein</span> American comics artist

Albert Bernard Feldstein was an American writer, editor, and artist, best known for his work at EC Comics and, from 1956 to 1985, as the editor of the satirical magazine Mad. After retiring from Mad, Feldstein concentrated on American paintings of Western wildlife.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betye Saar</span> American artist (born 1926)

Betye Irene Saar is an American artist known for her work in the medium of assemblage. Saar is a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Saar was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the 1970s, which engaged myths and stereotypes about race and femininity. Her work is considered highly political, as she challenged negative ideas about African Americans throughout her career; Saar is best known for her artwork that critiques anti-Black racism in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Valter</span> Estonian writer and illustrator

Edgar Valter was an Estonian graphic artist, caricaturist, writer and illustrator of children's books, with over 250 books to his name, through 55 years of activity (1950–2005). His most famous work is Pokuraamat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Kostabi</span> American artist and composer (born 1960)

Kalev Mark Kostabi is an American painter, sculptor and composer.

Alison Saar is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spirituality. Saar is well known for "transforming found objects to reflect themes of cultural and social identity, history, and religion." Saar credits her parents, collagist and assemblage artist Betye Saar and painter and art conservator Richard Saar, for her early exposure to are and to these metaphysical and spiritual practices. Saar followed in her parents footsteps along with her sisters, Lezley Saar and Tracye Saar-Cavanaugh who are also artists. Saar has been a practicing artist for many years, exhibiting in galleries around the world as well as installing public art works in New York City. She has received achievement awards from institutions including the New York City Art Commission as well as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

Janna Holmstedt is a Swedish artist based in Stockholm. She earned her MFA from the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts in 2004, and her recent awards include artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska (2007), the IASPIS International Exchange (2006), a Swedish Visual Arts Fund Project Grant (2005), NIFCA Nordic Air Residency in Tallinn, Estonia (2005) and two grants from the JC Kempes Foundation (2003/2004). Together with Po Hagstrom, Holmstedt is part of artist duo Trial and Error, working with projects related to national identity and the use of public space. Holmstedt also co-founded SQUID, an online project which facilitates a space for the parallel knowledge that emerges from an investigative, creative process.

Jaan Toomik is an Estonian video artist, painter and award-winning filmmaker, often described as the most widely acknowledged Estonian contemporary artist on the international scene.

Visual arts of Chicago refers to paintings, prints, illustrations, textile art, sculpture, ceramics and other visual artworks produced in Chicago or by people with a connection to Chicago. Since World War II, Chicago visual art has had a strong individualistic streak, little influenced by outside fashions. "One of the unique characteristics of Chicago," said Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts curator Bob Cozzolino, "is there's always been a very pronounced effort to not be derivative, to not follow the status quo." The Chicago art world has been described as having "a stubborn sense ... of tolerant pluralism." However, Chicago's art scene is "critically neglected." Critic Andrew Patner has said, "Chicago's commitment to figurative painting, dating back to the post-War period, has often put it at odds with New York critics and dealers." It is argued that Chicago art is rarely found in Chicago museums; some of the most remarkable Chicago artworks are found in other cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonhard Lapin</span> Estonian architect and artist (1947–2022)

Leonhard Lapin, also known under the pseudonym Albert Trapeež, was an Estonian architect, artist, architecture historian, and poet.

Urmas Muru is an Estonian architect and artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peeter Pere</span> Estonian architect and artist

Peeter Pere is a notable Estonian architect and artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andres Koort</span> Estonian artist

Andres Koort is an Estonian painter, scenographer, exhibit designer and curator. He is a member of the Estonian Artists' Association and member of the board of the Estonian Painters' Association since 2002 and has curated and designed some EPA's exhibitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvin D. Loving</span> African-American abstract expressionist painter (1935 - 2005)

Alvin D. Loving Jr., better known as Al Loving, was an African-American abstract expressionist painter. His work is known for hard-edge abstraction, dyed fabric paintings, and large paper collages, all exploring complicated color relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mall Nukke</span> Estonian artist

Mall Nukke is an Estonian artist. A printmaker by training, she is primarily known for her paintings, collages and installations influenced by pop art. Mall Nukke emerged on the Estonian art scene in the early 1990s, her work at the period can be seen as commentary of nascent mass culture and consumer society in newly independent Estonia. Her early collages combined various cultural references and created new media characters based on real entertainers and public figures. Since the 2000s, Mall Nukke has concentrated on creating photo-manipulations and mixed media paintings inspired by Eastern Orthodox icon art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taavi Varm</span> Estonian artist

Taavi Varm is an Estonian artist.

Aaron J. Gilbert, also known as "AJ", is an American visual artist. He is known for creating symbolically and psychologically charged narrative paintings. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

Enno Ootsing is an Estonian artist and academic. He has worked as a freelance graphic artist and designer, book artist and illustrator. In 1980, he became a lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and from 1984 until 2005, he was a professor and head of the graphics department of the institute. Since 2007 he has been a professor emeritus at the institute.

References