https://www.hamiltonartscouncil.ca/european-exchange-2021?fbclid=IwAR2CfsRagvT03UFnOPhNo0mONPYajqYK_Ui7i5gkKa6Gghu1s_dTzdPJ2iE (scroll down for press release PDF-file) :
ESTONIAN ARTIST: BRITTA BENNO
HAMILTON ARTS COUNCILS EUROPEAN ARTIST EXCHANGE PROGRAM 2021
International laureate and lecturer Britta Benno is a printmaker, visual artist, and all-round alchemist of layers, texture, and media. Britta will be hosted by Hamilton Arts Council at the Cotton Factory as part of the European Artist Exchange Program. Britta is a Tallinn-based artist whose creative voice has exhibited and lectured across the globe, including Finland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Iceland, and Australia.
Britta is interested in various hybrid techniques and materials that open up new perspectives. “Conceptually, I work with and depict dystopic urban landscapes… As an artist, for me the most important question is not ‘Why?’ or ‘How?’ but imagining ‘What if …?’ What if humankind is extinct and nature has reconquered urban landscapes?” Her work often extends the ‘what if’ question into her drawing, “What happens if a drawing becomes a print, becomes an animation, becomes a three dimensional virtual reality?”
Britta graduated with bachelor and master’s degrees from the printmaking department at the Estonian Academy of Arts and has also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Tallinn University. Currently, she is studying for a doctorate at the Estonian Academy of Arts, her artistic research is about, ‘Thinking in Layers, Worlding in Layers: Posthuman Landscapes in Extended Drawings and Prints’. Britta has established an independent art and printmaking studio, Grafodroom. She is a co-founder and organiser of Estonian international printmaking workshop Muhu Print. She has been an art teacher for over ten years in Tallinn Old Town Art School, while leading printmaking and drawing courses at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
An exciting addition to the 2021 European Artists Exchange program is the partnership of Smokestack Studio, located at the Cotton Factory. Smokestack specializes in collaborative analog printmaking & limited editions, working in etching, intaglio, silkscreen, relief, monoprint, and experimental printmaking projects.
The Estonian Artists’ Association’s main goals are to promote and enhance the visual arts in Estonia; to support its members; and to create good working and exhibition conditions for them. Hamilton Arts Council envisions an arts community that is professionally sustainable, innovative, diverse and impactful.
The Cotton Factory
Built in 1900, the former site of the Imperial Cotton Company has been transformed into a creative industries complex with space for studios, workshops and office space for artists, photographers and creative professionals.
Media Contacts: Elin Kard elin.kard@eaa.ee
David Hudson community@hamiltonartscouncil.ca
