The most vivid impressions, as we know, from our childhood. Aili Vint felt in love with the Sea when she was a little girl, then she realized that she would be an artist and would to paint all of this mystical, alluring and vibrant … Sea …
And my love for abstraction, wavy shapes, colors that come through one in the other, happened when I was about nine, and I met with the works of Aili.
Sea …. Sea’s views, bright, sparkling colored abstract compositions of the artist, all of it had gathered in a fine art world, that left as the joyful impression in my soul.
It’s something of warm, bright and just wonderful.
As the sea wave rolls and moves the shades of colors of our lives, as the water is able to reflect all of even the most vile, are hidden away in the buttom and it can clean everything, so and the art is able to expose the basest things, but also to raise the person above them, become for him the different guide, to show the life in other colors.
And I am happy to present the first publication of this year. The interview with a very sincere, positive person and talented artist, with Aili Vint. Let this year will be as bright, shining, at the same time calm and harmonious and different in its splendor for you as the sea is on the Aili’s paintings.
The Sea´s Moods and Whims VII. Pink Peace 2014 acrylic 36 x 35,5 cm artist´s collection
What is your source of inspiration? What things do impress you more?
Without the Sun we are in the shadows. We feel insignificance, sorrow, even inexplicable pain. But, during a powerful Sunset we sense both beauty and loss. It is an elated moment – just like the process of creation when the artist shines like a speck of dust in the Sun.
While painting the Sea, I always feel that the high and low tides of my moods are as chaotic as the waves – and I understand that the Sea and I share the same elements of nature. This inspires and pushes me, helping me to paint the sea. During these moments of creativity I get the amazing feeling as if the Sea could paint itself!
Sunset Flash 2011 oil on canvas
If you could handle of mood of a beholder, what do you prefer transfer to him, an idea or energy?
I like to create just a simple form of white paper, and then trust it to The Light of God. When your eyes dive into pure light, an absence of space is created. In this endless white emptiness, a cleansing of the mundane occurs, just as when a wine taster rinses his mouth with water before tasting a new wine.
A suggestion to workaholics: Please be kind to yourselves. As soon as in the second workshop: “Resting and Loafing”, we will learn the art of to living in the moment. We will change, as one, our severe and “more and more and more,” lifestyles and start to loaf and dream elegantly – just like that little girl who dreamed of becoming an artist, and becoming lazy if she feels like it, when she grows up.
„ All that is needed for this is an artist’s spirit that is steadfast in in finding a useless day and spending it totally uselessly. ” Lin Yutang.
- Let it be thus now!
- I will loll as best I can and afterward remember to get totally rested.
- I will leave everything undone and everything will get done… Chance will take care of everything!
Allow yourself at least a warm summer afternoon, purposefully spent totally uselessly, just ambling by the seaside.
If we make any video of your art now, what would you choose music as background? Or silence would be more preferable for this? Or some sounds of the Nature?
I am mesmerized by the power and charm of silence. A Calm Sea is incredibly mute. When the sun is setting all nature holds its breath, even seagulls stop shrieking. We are immersed in a Grand Silence as if in Creation’s festive reception of the Universe, where being human becomes exalted.
After the Storm, 1984, oil on canvas 92 x 115 cm, private collection
What is your ideal day?
I enjoy painting the Quiet Sea, because painting a mirror-smooth surface is the most challenging and by far the hardest to do. – Have you tried to put the baby to bed, when he does not want to sleep? – In order to get the Sea to lie down on the canvas, you have to wrestle it for a long time. Untill one fine day I feel that now is the right time and then painting succeeds again with surprising ease – as if someone else was working inside me and making incredible things happen, as if The Sea itself was painting my sea.
How intoxicating is a midsummer Sunset as the Sun picked sunset colors and started painting on the Sea. And when the red hot sky’s reflection glows on the smooth Sea, I dive into the warm bottomless depths, gently, gently, so as not to break the mirror smoothness of the Sea. I am totally with it.
The Sea´s Moods and Whims VI. Passion 2014 acrylic 36 x 35,5 cm artist ´s collection
Do you have a favorite work of your own art or may be is it whole series?
To me “The Stony Sea” is the most important of my seascapes, because it was the sourse of a very powerful event.
One day, when I was painting stony and translucent water, I suddenly received shocking news that a young acquaintance of mine had taken her own life. While painting the picture, I remember wondering whether this profound angst I felt at the time would remain trapped in that picture.
Years later I received an answer. A complete stranger came up to me, started scolding me for no longer painting the sea.Then she went on, searching for words: „You saved my life, you know …“ She told me that she had wanted to end her life, to give herself to the Sea. But a friend took her to the Kadriorg Art Museum to see one of my seascapes. The painting had mesmerized her, calling her back again and again. It offered her unaccountable consolation, until it finally calmed her down. This painting was seesama The Stony Sea.
Stony Sea, 1974
If you had any possibility to come and see some period of human history what time would you choose?
There is no ideal time. Here and now is the time where I have learned to know and accomplish myself. I come from the middle of the last century, but still paint the Sea the old-fashioned way, from the home shore to the horizon. The Sea has been always there.
It is not just a saying that in your future you meet your past. In own life a person will meet the past quite often. Look at the huge collages recycled from my own pictures and created in different techniques. I can do anything better than me! – This is my work today. It’s art to make art of art.
Variety is fun! In my next exhibition: THE SOUL OF THE SEA, my small abstract gouache paintings and tiny etchings transform into huge pieces, bigger than my oil paintings! They are like souls of the Sea that hover above the seascapes, just like ghosts that appear for a moment and disappear the next.
RED HOT SUN; 1979, gouache painting, original 28 x 21 cm
What do you think about contemporary art? It is honest with the audience or there is any «flirting with the beholders? Or is it a thing in itself, when the idea for the idea? Or its main task is to wake up human souls for anything of amazing and positive, to try to inspire people for search own way to become better persons?
Contemporary art has become selfish and often does not include the viewer. We can compare the art of our times with a woman who wears uncomforrable clothes and whose aim is to irritate her contemporaries while flirting with the art world.
Contemporary art could be everything it is not. It is appalling what we are doing at this moment to the cultures of this world and to each other. I am reminded of an old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times”. Art should be providing “first aid” and soothing people, not stressing them. It should be glorifying our world, offering aesthetic enjoyment, touching souls. The role of art in society has never been more important than now, because just now, and increasingly, people expect art to nourish their souls.
About artist
A Talmud legend tells us that when a child is born, his guardian angel touches his forehead to make the child forget the truths he was born with, else his life on earth be painful and intolerable.
Sometimes I feel that an artist is just like a child whose guardian angel forgot to touch his forehead. An artist doesn’t hear and interpret his world, because he senses it with his feelings, not his mind. An artist’s life is not as carefree and secure as it may seem. The only real currency for the artist is his creativity, his act of creating, and his creation.
About Lifestyle & Culture
Style is the complete impression an observer receives from another’s uniqueness, either from his spiritual depth or his shallowness. Some people simply exude stylish charm, like aroma from mellow pipe smoke. Whether a person has a shining spirit or a total lack of inspiration, either can be style. It is entirely dependent on the person. A stylish life is not a routine or a system or even an item. Only a picture, its frame, and the color of the wall in the room create a complete impression of style – all together! A perfectly stylish life is not only the enjoyment of luxury.
It is not surprising to anyone that slack idleness is hard work! A luxurious lifestyle is very boring for an artist. It arouses ones attention for only a moment. It doesn’t encourage feelings or inspire imagination, rather it dulls one and fills one with contentment. As an artist, I am drawn to the humanistic and optimistic life philosophy of the ancient Chinese – a lifestyle that values spontanaety and industriousness, at the same time allowing lazing and enjoyiment of “just being”. It actually glorifies “musing in the refined moment”. Lazing was part of the culture of ancient China and being in the moment was an art. The most cultured person was intelligently lazy. When gongs sounded throughout the land, each person knew it was time to stop “doing” and to ask oneself “what am I doing, how am I doing it, and is it the right thing to do?”
SEA AT KÄSMU 1991, oil on canvas, 150 x 175 cm
Thank you, Aili, for sharing us your positive energy, your profound musings, your art. I would like to wish you great inspiration and success! Let Sea and Nature give you harmony and desire to create in future your fantastic mysterous oeuvres!
all photos: courtesy of Aili Vint
More information on the artist at https://aili-vint.squarespace.com/
