20.03 - 19.04. 2026

On the occasion of Raul Meel’s 85th birthday, FLASH ART Gallery presents the artist’s graphic works, the homage to his contribution to the development of graphic art in post-war and contemporary Estonian art — both in a local and international context.

In addition to his pioneering role in painting and fire performances, an important part of Raul Meel’s artistic journey was connected to both free and printmaking practices, where he experimented with line, colour, and composition, combining in each artistic gesture his characteristic mathematical precision, figurative thinking, and sense of play. The visual vocabulary discovered and developed by Meel under conditions of artistic unfreedom resonated in a remarkable way both with the conventional plastic language of Western European modernism and the art of the second half of the 20th century, and with the local Estonian nature of his work in form and content.

Due to his distinctive mode of thinking, based on the search for a universal sign and its endless variable reproducibility in drawings, concrete poetry, and silkscreens, Meel created extensive series and conceptual total graphic installations. Many of these brought him international recognition: from 1972 onwards, Meel regularly sent his works to graphic art exhibitions and biennales across Europe, where he received awards and international acclaim, while remaining persona non grata in Soviet Estonia.

The central theme running like a red thread through Meel’s entire oeuvre is freedom — the freedom of Estonia, its nature and people, and the freedom of thought, word, and artistic gesture. The exhibition of Raul Meel’s graphic art at FLASH ART Gallery becomes a kind of self-portrait of the artist, inviting viewers to seek and affirm this freedom, metaphorically embodied in his iconic works: from concrete poetry to the series “Under the Sky,” from “Embrace” to “Windows and Landscapes,” and others.

The exhibition will remain open until 19 April 2026 and will be accompanied by an educational programme of lectures and discussions every Wednesday at 19:00 and Saturday at 14:00.