Marko Mäetamm (1965)

Marko Mäetammstudied graphics at the Estonian Academy of Arts, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 1993 and a Master’s in 1995. Mäetammhas received a number of awards, including Kristjan Raud annual art award, the Baltic Assembly Prize for the Arts, and the Estonian Ministry of Culture’s Annual State Cultural Prize. In 2008, he was awarded the Order of the White Star V Class by the Republic of Estonia.

Mäetamm represented Estonia at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and 2007. His artistic practice is highly autobiographical, centred around family life and society. The artist explores the grey area between the private and the public, in a variety of media – photography, sculpture, animation, painting, and text. In spite of occasionally gloomy content, his works are full of humour. They are stories that at first sight might appear extremely personal, intimate even, yet eventually speak to each of us. They address the basic instincts of humanity, and often display something so uncannily similar to our own experiences that we fail to recognise it, or perhaps feel uncomfortable acknowledging it.

Two of Marko Mäetamm’s works are included in the Signet Bank Art Collection – Money and I Want to Break Free.