Sandra Veinla, director of Pontone Gallery and curator of the exhibition, said that after many years of working in the London art world, she was really pleased to finally be able to work with Estonian artists and contribute to the promotion of Estonian culture abroad.

"Tõnis Saadoja and Kristi Kongi are both exceptional artists, and we are delighted to present their work for the first time in a joint exhibition and to introduce it to U.K. audiences. The work of both artists dovetails well with the gallery's history and future plans."

Since the 1990s, Pontone Gallery has maintained strong connections with artists who create works using realist and photorealist language. "Tõnis Saadoja, whose technical exploration of form and systematic approach develop this style in a very exciting direction, fits perfectly into this tradition," explained Veinla.

"We've also been looking for a strong abstract painter to collaborate with for some time, and Kristi Kongi's work is exactly what we were hoping to include in our program. We're very excited that Kristi will also be creating a spatial installation for our Fitzrovia gallery for the exhibition, going beyond painting on canvas to (also include) the walls, and engaging the entire gallery space."

For the Pontone Gallery exhibition, Kongi and Saadoja have both created works whereby the sky is the central theme, reflecting a symbolically important feature of Nordic and Estonian culture.

"Even though my visual language and that of Tõnis are completely different, I feel that our paintings have quite a lot in common, be that the idea of place, time or the sky. Certain worlds come together in the paintings. And that's fascinating to me," said Kristi Kongi.

 "When we were preparing this exhibition, it all seemed logical that our paintings could come together in one space and speak to each other."

Tõnis Saadoja's works as part of "Lost Summer Skies" include paintings from two different collections, which support each other in combination – monochrome paintings with an architectural element, as well as works with a summer sky motif.

"I am interested in a laconic approach to painting, in the conditional use of color and the relationship between space and surface, in the balance between the visible and the invisible, which in a low contrast painting is expressed in a hazy motif that glimmers beneath the sourdine canvas," Saadoja said.

"The new paintings, created with the London exhibition in mind, focus on variations in painting technique within a similar motif. In terms of the motif, all six paintings are in a twilight summer sky. I have been approaching the landscape motif in painting over the last year and a half, and the etudes of skies and clouds are a part of that."

More information about the exhibitions is available here.

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