in his photo-based work the Estonian artist Mark Raidpere focuses on the bodyscape in a new and unexpected way. As a mirror of the artist 's corporal identity, the photographic medium assumes a quite usual role here, at first sight, the different layers of meaning only appear later.

Raidpere's self-portrait nudes include the mannerism of what is called "a model's behavior" behind which we can sense a whole range of cultural and personal "corporal" definitions. His nude portraits have undertones of something evil,d istorted: the outcast, the drop-out, the criminal come to mind. These intimations are nourished by the grainy and grayish structure of the images, which recalls the notion of an "archive," and by the tiny little spots on the model's legs and hands, which systematically disturb our "visual pleasure." What is most admirable in

Raidpere"s images is the fact that he has managed to create a powerful work within the typical and apparently exhausted realm of the self-portrait.
- Peeter Linnap -

Nominated by Peeter Linnap, critic and curator, Tallinn.