Kris Lemsalu’s practice is filled with eccentric colours, shamans, talismans, kitsch imagery and materials such as clothing, food and animal pelts. Working in installation, sculpture and performance, the Estonian artist’s works deny categorization and invite ritualistic catharsis of life and death, beauty and pain. Mimicking the formlessness of life itself, her works and performances transcend structure into absurdist mix of textures and materials; with cheap rubber bags being attached to precious porcelain, a toothbrush burning between the artist’s lips or a chicken-eggs-chandelier hanging between her legs. Lemsalu’s exquisite use of her body as a material alongside the strangeness of her inanimate objects blends the very distinction between herself, her art and life, more broadly. Fairy tales and folklore, fantasy and reality become indistinguishable in the artist’s universe of kitsch and absurdity.  With no beginning or end, Lemsalu’s practice is a metamorphosis in action. 

Margot Samel

Berlin

Athens Biennale

Athens

Performa

New York City

Tallinn

London

Frieze

Basel

Art Basel

Liste Art Fair

Köln

Art Cologne

Temnikova & Kasela

Tanya Leighton

Paris

Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain

Goldsmiths CCA

Kris Lemsalu

Put the lime in the coconut

Immaterial Material Love

Artist Statement

Mother of Stilts

Give Us A Song

Bride, Builder, Businesswoman and Baby

Sally, Go Round the Roses

HOLY HELL O