Acrylic painting / selection

Little Blue Pants

Trap

Withering

Curiosity

Trap closed

Loose knots

Gate

Opposition

Sun

Raul Meel, ensemble Fairy Tale of Little Blue Pants (also: Fairy Tale of a Little Blue Riding Pants), 1972-1979, selection, in Tartu Art Museum collection

The ten-part row of paintings “Fairytale of Little Blue Pants” was begun in 1972 as a pen drawing; finally – canvas, acrylic, 1979 (101.5×100 cm).
This row is a constructivist, seemingly surrealist story. The scheme against the background of yellow fairy tale is more or less as follows: Little Blue Pants – curiosity – gate – bait – trap – trap closed – opposition – withering – loose knots – sun. The row cannot nevertheless be linearly intellectually deduced, it has paradoxes! The main design element is an even slit with three holes…

…

The idea of “Blue Pants” developed for seven years, maybe longer. I tried to focus on fairy tales or what was being written or said about them. As a result, I produced a compact story; however, its length and the manner of how its dark-coloured structure emerges, refer to more ancient fairy tales without a beginning or an end. Before the beginning and the end there is infinity.The Little Blue Pants can hardly function outside my fairy tale and… I will not lose it”

Raul Meel, “Conspectus of the Past”

Raul Meel, ensemble Traveling into the Green I-VIII (also: Journey into the Green), 1973-1979

“In the summer of 1975 I painted gouache sketches for a 8-picture row of acrylic paintings that followed, “Traveling into the Green” (8 works à 103×100 cm, canvas, acrylic). I had scribbled the constructive idea for this project with pencil on paper in 1973 and painted it with watercolour on canvas in 1979; only then did I succeed in obtaining the necessary colours…
These pictures are a visual narrative that never gets rid of the rules of pre-determined development. The emotional current of these paintings comes from the clarity based on simplicity. The viewer is like a traveller on a long road feeling existential nostalgia, whose journey at some point comes to an end. That moment is there – in the right of the last picture but one, quite obvious. The solitary endless road then continues in the green…” Raul Meel, “Conspectus of the Past”

“Traveling into the Green” is now in the collection of Norton and Nancy Dodge in Zimmerli museum (New Jersey) See the details / Credit lines

Raul Meel, trio The Regress of Sharp corners I-III (also: Losing the Sharp Corners),(103×100 cm), 1981, in AME collection

“According to Meel, the transformations of the triangle should be seen as transformations into a pyramidal form, or a grave monument, which can be interpreted as carrying an anti-Soviet message”
Eha Komissarov

Raul Meel, series Enchantment and Spirit (also: Magic and Spirit), begun in 1988, selection: 1, 24, 16, 113, 18, 19, in AME collection

“In autumn 1988 I began to paint the series of acrylic paintings “Enchantment and Spirit” – in the 2.8 square metre bathroom of our Mustamäe apartment. I used various different brushes for this: hair brushes, sauna brushes, horse brushes, clothing brushes, washing brushes,… all the way up to long doormat brushes; I occasionally cut them to different sizes. Sometimes I painted “wet” and sometimes “dry”. I constructed exact mental structures with the strokes of the brush, whose tracks had a spontaneous, elemental look…”
Raul Meel, “Conspectus of the Past”

To see more paintings from the series Enchantment and Spirit (Magic and Spirit) in the Art Museum of Estonia digital collection click here

Raul Meel, series Magic and Spirit / Enchantment and Spirit paintings – property of the artist

Raul Meel, ensemble Week of Light (108×100 cm), 1988, selection, in private collection

Raul Meel, ensemble Copper Chase I-V, also Copper Rush (114×106 cm), 1990, property of the artist, photos: Hanna-Christina Laupmaa

Raul Meel, series Copula, (131×106 cm) 18-23, 1993-1995, selection, in AME collection

Raul Meel, series White Plan on Bright Yellow Field I-V (131×106 cm), 1993-1995, in AME collection

Raul Meel, series Red Borderline,

(131×106 cm), 2011, selection,

property of the artist

Raul Meel, ensemble Hommage to Ilya Kabakov, IK 1-12, 2023, Hahnemühle aquarelle paper 425 g, metallic markers: gold, silver and bronze, property of the artist

Raul Meel, ensemble Love of the Titans, 1-15, 2023, Hahnemühle aquarelle paper, acrylic markers, property of the artist