This is a serigraph print of the motif from one of the best known artworks by Jaan  Toomik – a video titled “Isa ja poeg” (Father and Son, 1998). The work depicts the artist skating naked on the Baltic Sea, the voice of his son singing a choral in the background. This and many others of Toomik’s works are deeply personal, evoking the artist’s complexes, anxieties and relationships. As a child Toomik lost his father and later also his brother – so death is present in many of his works. The work “Nimetu” (Untitled, 2002) is a video documentation of a performance dedicated to Toomik’s dead brother – we see the artist jumping from nine-metres high. The video “Tantsides isaga” (Dancing with Dad, 2003) shows the artist rocking to Jimi Hendrix’s music on his father’s grave.

Jaan Toomik studied painting at the Estonian Academy of Art (MA, 1991). He has taken part in numerous international large-scale exhibitions and biennales like São Paulo Biennial (1994), Manifesta Biennial (1996), Site Santa Fe Biennial (1997), Venice Biennale (1997, 2003), Berlin Biennale (2006). His works belong to the collections of Kiasma, Museum Ludwig, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, National Museum of Denmark, National Museum in Szczecin, Stedelijk Museum, Moderna Museet, Louis Vuitton Foundation and Nicola Trussardi Foundation, and Erika Hoffmann’s private collection.

Toomik’s last retrospective “My End is My Beginning. And My Beginning is My End” took place in 2019 at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (curator Viktor Misiano). Since the beginning of the year 2000, Toomik has worked as a teacher and professor in the Estonian Academy of Arts (1993–2010). In 2005 he was awarded with the Konrad Mägi medal by the Estonian Artists’ Association. Jaan Toomik is among the recipients of the national artists’ salary between 2022-2024.