Born 1982 in Estonia. Lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. Studied at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

In her artistic work, Anu Vahtra focuses primarily on specific architectural situations, and the exhibition spaces themselves. Through subtle interventions and small architectural modifications, she alters the perception of these spaces – often so minimally that the changes are hardly noticeable at first. For her photographic works, she chooses very specific angles on the same spatial situation, from which the intention of her interventions unfolds. Lines of sight shift, spatial depth becomes flat, large objects appear small, crooked objects appear straight. In this way, Vahtra also questions photography’s ability to represent reality clearly and authentically.

For INSIGHTS, Anu Vahtra photographed bricks from the Aseri plant in Estonia in 2018, some of them defective or broken. Artfully presented in settings designed especially for this purpose, the bricks appear like sophisticated and precious sculptures. The viewer’s attention is directed to their special shape and the texture of the material, reinforced by the oversized representation relative to the background.

www.anuvahtra.com