10.12.2008 – 30.01.2009
This year’s last exhibition in SEB Gallery is overflowing with wind and fire, flaming passion and blazing colours.

Sirje Protsin, an artist residing and working in Tartu spreads out in front of the public her figural compositions born in the symbiosis of wind and fire over the two last years. Namely the wind with its unpredictable strength, and fire with its passionate flames characterize most vividly Protsin’s state of soul and her creative activity in the recent years. With expressive painting style and colour contrasts the artist brings out also the other main elements – water and earth through the symbols of fire and wind.

The metaphor of wind speaks about the harmony of existence and place, an artist in time and space here and now, his/hers life and destiny. To counterbalance this the fire expresses everlasting change, life and movement. The fire is bright, scorching, burning, destroying, illuminating,
warming – all at the same time, whereas the wind is transparent air – stormy and tempestuous, yet at the next moment mild and soothing.
In case of both elements we can talk about opposition, contrast that, too, characterizes Protsin’s style of painting. The paintings called “Of Fire” and “Of Wind” contrast each other with their shades of colour, perception of figures and energy – just like day and night.

Sirje Protsin loves colours and knows how to handle them on canvas – the colour combinations enriched with delicate nuances of a broad spectrum reflect life, genuine emotions and movement. The human body and colour together visualize the artist’s thought, perception and questions – unknowing whether answers to them will be found. Protsin’s hand is characterized by the principle of contrast – she opposes pasty and non-transparent surface of the painting to thin and glazy; dramatic feelings conveyed with vigorous brush-strokes and bright colour to peaceful and harmonious colouring. The red colour symbolizing passion, energy and vitality has found its place in many works. Johannes Saar has characterized Sirje Protsin’s use of colour as follows: „Protsin’s self-confident and unconstrained style of painting gives away vast experience as a painter rooted in the historical Pallas school of painting. That’s where the impeccable gradations of light and dark colour originate that run like the scales of music from one end to the other.“

Sirje Protsin draws her inspiration from different sources. She is a frequent visitor of dance shows, observing the moving figures, exalted feelings interpreted into the language of dance formations; the artist also gathers suggestive energy from various visual materials.
Yet she does not copy them one-to-one but interprets and creates a new reality by changing and working the human figure, disarranging reality into unreality. Searching for inspiration in nature and the world around us the creative work of Sirje Protsin is greatly autobiographical, depicting a Woman who is searching for her place and finds it in constant changing.www.haus.ee