Heikki Leis (b. 1973) is an artist who graduated from the Tartu Art College in the field of sculpture and whose preferred techniques are hyperrealist drawings and analogue photography. Being a multifaceted artist, his art encompasses portraiture, staged photos, still-lifes and documentalism.
A very simple technique is employed for the photo series “Estonia 8:49”, “Estonia 12:46” and “Estonia 20:41”. Leis has travelled around the entire world carrying a digital clock with him and placing it in different frames. The clock seems so unaccustomed and out of place in a jungle or operating theatre that the eye suspects a deception. The artist is interested in how time – created by humans themselves – has enslaved us in our everyday lives. Photographs in their seeming verisimilitude are never free of distortions. Photographs have a major role in producing a document and often the final image is selected from among many different “takes”. Here moment of the shutter release was constant, and thus the result no longer depends on the photographer’s ability to capture the “decisive moment”; rather the result is life’s own inevitability and – why not – enthralling everyday quality.
