“Water, Greenery and a Beautiful Face” by Marleen Suvi

On Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 18.00, Marleen Suvi will open her solo exhibition Water, Greenery and a Beautiful Face, curated by Kerly Ritval, in Draakoni gallery.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by a saying often attributed to the Persian Sufi and scholar Abu Nuʿaym al-Isfahani (948–1038): “Three things in this world help us overcome sorrow: water, greenery, and a beautiful face.”

The artist uses the phrase as a lens through which to explore its meanings. The Quran speaks of all creation being made from water; greenery signifies paradise and ascent to bliss; and the human face is understood as a reflection of the divine in man.
The exhibition unfolds as a pilgrimage toward paradise – a tribute to a beloved person, drifting through friendship, tenderness, memory and remembrance, through dreaming, reverie, and forgetting.

Marleen Suvi (b. 1998) is a painter whose artistic centre of gravity is the human being in their private realm – intellectually and emotionally. She holds an MA in Contemporary Art (2023) and a BA in Painting (2020) from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her works are defined by a poetic tension between emotionally charged themes and a technically refined, materially experimental approach.This allows her to approach intimate themes with sensitivity and discretion. Suvi often draws the viewer disarmingly close to her subjects, yet through the framework of painting and its edges, she upholds a sense of distance and restraint. In this careful balance, her work echoes a humanist truth: that the human being remains the measure of all things. Marleen Suvi’s recent exhibitions include The Zoo on Enteropia (Haapsalu City Gallery, 2025, curated by Aleksander Metsamärt) and We’ve Never Lived in a House (EKA gallery, 2024, curated by Aleksander Metsamärt). She is also a recipient of the Helju Rossmann Schneider Scholarship.

Kerly Ritval (1996) is a project manager at Kanuti Gildi SAAL, and an independent visual arts curator and art critic. She holds a BA in Art History and Visual Culture and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Ritval values close collaboration with artists and a shared process of refining ideas. Her broader curatorial interests engage with the human body and its corporeal reality, exploring the social frameworks, readings, and transgressions of bodily norms and stereotypes. Her recent curatorial work includes Admission Not for Everyone (Lisette Lepik and Brenda Purtsak, Hobusepea gallery, 2024), Hair in My Mouth (a solo performance by Nele Tiidelepp at Margot Samel gallery, New York, 2023), and Each Person is Born in Fragments (with co-curator Mikk Lahesalu, Estonian Sculptors’ Union exhibition at ARS Project Space, 2023).

Artist: Marleen Suvi
Curator: Kerly Ritval
Graphic design: Rainer Kasekivi
Technical assistance: Erik Liiv

Supported by: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Põhjala Brewery. 
Exhibitions at Draakoni gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.

Additional information:
Draakon Gallery
Tel:  +372 5645 1591
       +372 528 5324
       +372 6 276 777
E-mail: galerii@eaa.ee
Pikk 18, 10133 Tallinn
www.hobusepeadraakon.ee
Mon–Fri 11.00–18.00
Sat 11.00–17.0