Malle Leis
(1940–2017)
Girl and a Rainbow I, II, III. 1978
Watercolour (3 pieces). Lm 89.5 x 51.7 cm (framed)
price 14 100
Three watercolour paintings depict the same lovely person once with a rainbow, once with green apples, and once with potatoes. The almost conceptual triple painting, however, seems to depict something more – one girl growing up into an adult. So one would ask, at what age was a person still considered a ‘girl’ as of 1978?
In the 1960s, rainbow meant here in Estonia what was occasionally seen in the sky due to the combination of rainy and sunny weather – an atmospheric phenomenon. It always makes you happy when it shows up. Malle Leis has painted a rainbow of soul for the girl and a world waiting to be discovered, with ripe strawberries and delicate winged insects flying around. Watercolour painting is like the blessing of Malle Leis as an aesthete to one child and the world.
Malle Leis here has painted green apples very green indeed, these are accentuated by red strawberries and cherries. Green and red are opposite colours, reinforcing the influence of each other. Malle Leis has surrounded the portrait of a young woman with apples and berries, the composition forming a light arc that could replace an otherwise too conventional perspective. Please note that the work proceeds outside the dimensions of space – does the artist draw attention to the (rainbow) arc as a dimension of human inner feeling?
Malle Leis has portrayed an adult woman in a twin portrait, direct view and profile. A practical plant, potatoes, and strawberries again, have entered the same picture as her. The plants have fruit, but at the same time they are still in full bloom. Here, too, the composition is formed not on the basis of a linear perspective, but more interestingly – on the basis of an arc. Once again, Malle Leis has given this young woman a rainbow as a companion, which makes one happy when an optical combination of colours curves across the sky.