Enno Hallek, who was born in Estonia and later fled to Sweden with his family during the Second World War, wove the nostalgia and vividness of Baltic sunsets into his art. He asserts that these sunsets were the sole fragments of a homeland that individuals like him could retain as they fled. This emotional sentiment is literalized in his assemblage of ‘portable sunsets’, displayed in the exhibition. They embody his long-standing practice of using colourful plywood boards as modular pieces that can be rearranged and modified to create new images. Through his continuous exploration and blending of mediums, Hallek has blurred the lines between the spatial dimensions of painting and installation, and between the figurative and the abstract. 

Work in the exhibition: Portable Sunset (1990–2005), painted plywood, metal stand, 40 pieces, 73 × 60 cm each. Courtesy of the artist