Maria Sidljarevitš
Maria Sidljarevitš (1982) graduated from the painting department of the Estonian Academy on Arts in 2014 (MA). She has had five solo exhibitions in addition to participating in a number of group exhibitions. Sidljarevitš is a member of the Estonian Artists’ Association and from 2015 also the Chairman of the Board of the Estonian Painters’ Association.
Sidljarevitš has received widespread attention, also through the popular ZA/UM platform, where the writer Mudlum has described her as follows: “As a painter, Maria is a peculiar mixture of naivety and expressionism, yet in constant development. I believe that there is also a strong background here from the Russian conceptualism of the 1920s /…/ In her paintings she tries to solve the main tasks of our life, its endless allures, death, love and suffering. Who are you in this world? Where is your place; what do you have to do; where do you go; who do you become or remain? Where is God? What is loneliness? There is neither false shame in front of big subjects nor social art. When she paints, she talks to her picture, touches it, and sometimes it seems as if she is not the one painting the picture, but the picture is painting her and itself at the same time, changing and growing out of itself.”1The quote is taken from https://noba.ac/et/kunstnik/maria-sidljarevits/.