Mari Frühling (b. 1984) is a painter and a member of the art collective Multinektar. She graduated cum laude from the BA Painting program at the Pallas University of Applied Sciences (2025) and works as a freelance painter in Tartu at the Aparaaditehas creative hub. In 2024, Frühling was awarded the Hotel Pallas painting scholarship, in connection with which she presented the solo exhibition “Shared Space” at the Tartu Art House. Frühling exhibits actively at Estonian art auctions and in the collective’s group shows. Preparations are currently underway for the collective’s joint exhibition in the main hall of the Tartu Art House and at the art club Promenaadi 5, while a duo exhibition with Krete Erlenhein is also in progress.
Frühling’s practice centers on photorealistic oil paintings. As an advocate for human and animal rights, she is interested in the paradoxes of a dual world, questions of ethics, and the inconsistencies that surface in people. Visually, this emerges as painted collages where contrasts of color and form meet with subtle shifts of reality. Working with dissonance, her compositions hold tension and balance at the same time.
Seeking to avoid art materials that contain animal-derived components, Mari uses professional vegan-labeled oil paints and synthetic brushes, and looks for alternatives to materials that have historically been of animal origin.