Jaan Elken 1957 Red Circle. 1987 - 1995

Some of Jaan Elken’s paintings have been completed over the decades, and the artist has at times taken the liberty of treating earlier paintings as ready-made, merely as a starting material for new paintings. The period from 1987 to 1995 holds dramatic global political changes, to which the artist with a social nerve is hypersensitive. There is a lot of hinting in this painting, probably some architectural details that an architect-educated artist notices, a certain ignorance of the unknown, and complex surface details. The central image, the red circle – is it the control and protective meaning of the red colour as it is known in folk art and some magical beliefs?