Birch at Järvselja

Jane Remm's (1978) recent work is devoted to representing nature, mostly the Estonian forest which, while very familiar to Estonians, may appear strange, almost exotic in its undisturbed wilderness to most foreigners, especially as large parts of primeval European forests have been destroyed ever since the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution. The attention, care and detail that Remm extends to the trees that she portrays in her Stumps series bring her subjects to life. Remm seeks to understand their life experience, listen to them and translate the received experience into a visual language — as a means to personify nature, to paint it as the living organism that it is, breathing in the same rhythm as the viewer. Remm's stumps, despite being at the end stage of their life, don't have a saddening effect as they're evidence of the natural cycle of life, one that wasn't disturbed by human activity. When human activity does make an appearance in Remm's work, its concrete lines or destructive behaviour is typically in contrast with nature. There's something peaceful about the imperfectly perfect harmonius cycle of life portrayed by Remm as well as the passage of time where everything, from the leaves to the moss, has fallen into place, serving perhaps as a kind of memento mori and a testament to the beauty of nature, both in its climax and death, when given the chance to run its natural course.