Paul Kuimet

Paul Kuimet (EE, b. 1984) is a Tallinn-based artist who works with photographic installations and 16mm films, the subject of which includes landscapes, architecture, objects and works of art. Obliquely addressing capitalism’s structures and modus operandi, Kuimet reveals the social and cultural values of the present day in atemporal details and fleeting moments. In 2018, he participated in residency programmes at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, and the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York City. Since 2022, Kuimet has worked as Associate Professor in the Department of Photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where he himself completed an MA in 2014. 

 

Crystal Grid is a series of photocollages, bringing fragments of plants photographed in different botanical gardens across the world onto a single surface. The collage pattern for each piece is a variation of a grid – based on the roof structure of the central transept of the Crystal Palace. The analogue production process of the work both emphasises and obscures photography’s indexical relationship to the places where the photos were taken. Presented in sets of two, three or four images, each work contains fragments from another that have been scrambled by the grid.

 

The What It Is to Be What You Are Not series combines cameraless photographs with dried leaves collected from the palm houses of Tallinn Botanical Garden. The geometric shapes in the compositions are abstracted from the same grid pattern used in the Crystal Grid project. 

 

www.paulkuimet.ee