About

Meriliis Rinne (MERU) is an Estonian-born artist living and working in the United Kingdom. Her practice explores tension—between structure and freedom, surface and depth, control and intuition.

Working across abstract painting and abstracted female figures, she constructs her own canvases and frequently incorporates recycled textiles and found materials. The physicality of the surface is central to her process; each layer carries traces of resistance, friction, and transformation.

Her female figures are not literal depictions but atmospheric presences—emerging, fragmenting, dissolving within the painted field. They move between abstraction and figuration, reflecting themes of identity, memory, vulnerability, and psychological space.

In 2022, In 2021, Rinne established her independent studio in Windsor, UK—a multi-functional space for creating art, teaching, hosting events, and showcasing her own work. Previously, she maintained studio spaces in Crouch Hill and Angel, Islington, London, and in Süda tn, Tallinn.

Rinne has exhibited in the United Kingdom and internationally, including participation in the Venice Biennale and projects associated with Frieze London.

She has presented work in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and Mexico, and has held solo exhibitions in Estonia at Haus Gallery (2017), Solaris Gallery (2020), and Põhjala Factory (2020).

She is an active member of Art Society Soho and ArtCan, and her work has been featured in ERR Kultuur and Sirp.

For Rinne, painting is not decorative but investigative: a way to examine what lies beneath emotional and societal structures and to reconfigure tension into something materially and visually resolved.