Common Cow-wheat - Melampyrum pratense

Common Cow-wheat – Melampyrum pratense

Bent metal wires, wooden board

43 x 26 x 7 cm

2021

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A sculpture from the series “Do You See Them As Well?“.

Eike Eplik’s newest project “Do You See Them As Well” (2021) with bent metal wires as the main form introduces a new chapter in the artist’s interpretation of the relationship between humans and nature. The artist uses plants commonly found in Estonian meadows, recreating them with man-made materials. These important elements in sustaining the biological diversity are often overlooked and mistreated as weeds. By recreating these plants in fantastical forms, Eplik urges us to ask what the environment we live in is like and whether we think about those we share it with or whether we even know how to share?

The series “Do You See Them As Well” was first exhibited in Eike Eplik’s solo exhibition “Shared territory” at Tartu Art Museum in 2021.

About the artist

Eike Eplik is a sculptor and installation artist who is deeply fascinated by biodiversity and its complicated relationship with humankind. She creates sensitive and imaginative works full of personal mythology, using different visual expressions and materials such as clay, plaster, metal, wood and ready-made. Similar to the ideas of philosopher Astrida Neimanis about water-connected worlds, the artist takes a humble approach to all living things; in her art, strictly defined categories and hierarchies do not exist. Her work can be described as micro-worlds inhabited by different creatures in combination with plant forms, including fungi, roots, and cones. Animating the life forms and vessels that incubate them, Eplik’s sculptures inhabit the rooms, similar to a bird constructing a nest, or mycelia creating a complicated network of roots.

Eike Eplik (b. 1982, Rapla, Estonia) is an Estonian artist living in Tartu. Her formal education includes a master’s from the Sculpture Department (2010) at the Estonian Academy of Arts and a Bachelor’s from the Sculpture Department (2007) at Tartu Art College. Eplik has received the Annual Prize of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia (2021), the Addo Vabbe Stipend (2018), the young artist production stipend KUKU NUNNU by the contemporary art festival ART IST KUKU NU UT (2012), the Eduard Wiiralt Stipend (2006) and in 2015, she was nominated for the Sadolin Art Prize. Eplik was one of the recipients of the national artist’s salary from 2021 to 2023.

Eplik’s recent exhibitions include White Dwarfs and All Those Beautiful Nebulas at kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (2024/25); In the Deep Swamp – Spore Formation at Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art (EKKM), Tallinn, Estonia (2024); Emotional Landscapes at Arka Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania (2023); Growing Out? Growing Up? Contemporary Art Collecting in the Baltics at Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (2022); My Bitter Sweet Frankenstein Body at Titanik, Turku, Finland (2022); Biomass – Shared Territory at Tartu Art Museum, Tartu, Estonia (2021); Biomass – Ghost in the Corner at Kogo Gallery, Tartu, Estonia (2020). In 2021, Kogo Gallery represented Eike Eplik’s works at Liste Art Fair Basel.

Her works are part of the Estonian Art Museum, Tartu Art Museum, the Estonian Ceramics Association, and private collections.

Eike Eplik is represented by Kogo Gallery.

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