Herkki-Erich Merila

Artist's country of origin: Estonia

Herkki Erich Merila (born 1964 in Tallinn), as a member of the virtual artist DeStudio, is the father of contemporary Estonian photography. And as is it often the case with great artists, he is drawn to one of the most eternal motifs of all times – the female body.

Merila also works in fashion photography and uses a similar formal approach in his other works as well, with the difference of removing the clothes from his models.

In an equal amount of the symbolism of the gesture, the previous remark was made ironically, yet it does have a point. The woman, whose face we never see is like a canvas in Merila’s artistic work, in relation to which the spaces of form and substance actualise. Without a human dimension, which is embodied by the beautiful nude, the composition would be empty and formalist. At the same time, however, the narrative in the photograph could take another direction: forest as a primal value ennobles and justifies the male desire for female beauty.*

*Photographic Art Fair 2014