EDWARD VON LÕNGUS (EE)

Edward von Lõngus is without a doubt the most famous of Estonian street artist. The first time he attracted public attention was in 2011 when he sprayed the images of homeless Tammsaare and Koidula on the streets. Adding to the mystery, Lõngus never reveals his face and, according to the artist, he doesn’t even exist in physical form. Instead, it's a theoretical concept shared by all, the age of multiple identity reflecting off the information field generated by the vibrations of our collective consciousness. When breaking auction records became too customary, he stunned the public by receiving state support as an illegal street artist to tour around Europe for two years. Lõngus likes to play around with cultural codes, every art piece is charged with relevant issues. The highest selling work of Lõngus fetched 13 050 euros.


KAIRO (EE)

KAIRO is a self-taught artist who considers 2009 as her starting point. As an artist she prefers the term naive artist as it aptly describes the abundance of colour and detail of her works, and a certain disinterest towards realistic depiction of anatomy, space, etc. Not to mention to signal the lack of formal art education. Kairo is known for covering the utility boxes on her home street in the Supilinn district with gorgeous paintings. It wasn’t an obstacle that she had to act without permission nor having a child and stroller in tow while doing it. She often depicts autobiographical scenes of financial struggles, clashes between self-realisation and motherhood, memento mori and her personal bearded male muse.


MÜRA2000 (EE)

müra2000 is a (street)art project that deals with the subject of civilization and human nature through decay and its aesthetics. Active since 2005 with varying levels of productivity. The project started with depicting airplanes as a symbol of our changing worldview and perception of reality and how civilization is shaping it. Think about it, we can travel long distances in a short time while being in a metal tube 10000 meters in the sky and not even raise an eyebrow.

The name “müra (noise)” reflects the artist's visual interests and “2000” as some kind of retrofuturistic addition plays with the idea of an idealized vision of a future that will never come. It is also a tribute to classic graffiti writers like Futura 2000 and therefore also self-ironic since the artist uses stencils as the medium. Recurring motifs in müra2000’s works are crashed cars, excavators, general destruction and decay.  

Read the interview with müra2000 from the second number of our Tartu Street Art Zine. 

K2rtE (EE)

k2rte is an illustrator and graphic designer who experiments with different mediums and formats, including stickers and walls as well as paper and sneakers. k2rte is inspired by psychedelic sci-fi art of the 70s, anime, comics and nature. Her creative process can be followed on Instagram.

GUTFACE (EE)

GUTFACE  is a low-brow artist whose roots are deep in the soil of East Estonia. You may find him rolling away under a bridge in Tartu, working on plywood cut-outs in his studio in Jõhvi or behind the wheel of a car that’s always packed with paint, on his way to another wall. Hear someone playing drums in the basement? It’s probably also him. GUTFACE is fascinated by mythology and symbolism and often finds himself talking a bit too much about battles and world history. His natural curiosity is mixed with personal reflections that manifest in luscious forms and colours with a strong kick. GUTFACE started his conquest of Tartu by doing paste-ups and rooftops, but soon found his way to rollers and big-scale works as well as sculpture. In addition to working in public space, he often switches between digital mediums such as video, music and graphic design.

STINA LEEK (EE)

Stina Leek is a young and furious freelance artist, founding member of the art collective Ajuokse and the organiser of underground art gatherings. Her work is recogniseable by its thick and undulating graphic line and bountiful eyeballs. If she had to categorise her work stylistically, she’d go with low-brow art. Stina showed some of the older players how it’s done with her seven part street art comic strip the viewer had to piece together from all over Tartu. For her, street art is communication without direct contact and exposing face, every introvert’s dream. It’s communication with other street artists, the surrounding space and the people moving through that space. Stina stresses that both the visual elements she creates and the location picked for the piece have a meaning – sometimes you need to delve deeper, think along and maybe even seek them out. Although Stina’s relationship with street art is new and developing it’s clearly meant to be.