This exhibition concludes the series of female sculptural portraits begun in the preceding exhibition, "Mare and Other Girls," which featured female figures that the artist has created over the past few decades.

Mikof said that this was her self-image throughout the years. However, that idealization has never meant perfection or conformity, but rather a transgression. She said that she could experiment more freely with self-portraits and portraits of close female friends than with sculptures of men.

As a tribute to Mare Mikof and the female figures she sculpted, the director and author Sveta Grigorjeva translated Mikof's sculptures into a dance "performance-sculpture."

The performance was accompanied by Grigorjeva's own writing, an evocative story in which Mare Mikof and her grotesque, inwardly strong and powerful girls pushed their way out of the exhibition room as a collective sculpture into Vabaduse väljak.

Mikof said that her "Girl 4" (2020) is inspired by Kersti Kaljulaid's wit and eloquence, while her "Girl 5" (2021), clothed in a white costume reminiscent of a scarf and produced for last year's exhibition, could be named "Reeda."

"Girl 7" is a new work depicting the most self-referential figure of recent works; she wears "pilotka" and holds a sculptor's tool.

Although the seventh sculpture represents the end of Mikof's work on female portraits, the final piece, "Girl 6," has yet to be produced.

Mare Mikof, born in 1941, studied sculpture at the Estonian National Institute of Art from 1961 to 1971 and history at Tartu from 1962 to 1964. She has held positions as a restorer, principal artist at Ars Monumentaal, and Tallinn artist. She taught sculpting at the Estonian Academy of Arts and the University of Tartu's Viljandi Culture Academy.

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