ISLANDS
Mārtiņš Zitmanis (Latvia)
“When alpine territories overflow with water, mountains turn to Islands.
Each stands alone, unlike the rest in character and landscape.
Each carries its distinctive markings, which, in turn, serve a specific purpose.
They all are different –
Black or White, or Red…
Yet all connect into a larger Earthly web beneath the vast aquatic sweep.
This network, we call Archipelago.”
/Mārtiņš Zitmanis/
The artist’s “islands” are distinctive objects surfacing in all his paintings. Much like the titles of his works, these forms are actively communicating something – encapsulating their creator’s deeply personal discoveries, subjective by default and visually expressive of what has touched him in the ongoing odyssey of his life. The artworks in this exhibition lean towards abstraction, but the “island objects” invariably take centre stage to get across their message or perspective. From realism to abstraction and back, the viewer is continuously invited to reflect on the specific lens and properties of Zitmanis’s mental archipelago. This island-hopping way of navigating the display can have the added benefit of stirring in the viewer an even broader contemplation of where exactly we are drifting in humanity’s vast ocean of ideas. The bright palette, with its contrasting colours, reinforces the effect by adding an emotional dimension to the viewer’s visual experience.
For Zitmanis, who spent the first thirteen years of his long, itinerant career in Daugavpils, the exhibition is a homecoming – a return to the earliest in a line of memorable “islands” that have anchored him in his creative voyage.
“For me, an observation sparks association, which, in turn, suggests an image. The latter I develop, discarding anything that feels excessive, into a geometrically structured graphic composition, with its distinctive lines and planes, metallic surface properties, and rhythmic textures. I’m drawn to mediaeval iconography and modern sculpture – their way of representing things that isn’t literal or strictly realistic but can be likened in its impact to an ornamental sign,” the artist says.
Curator Tatjana Černova
Mārtiņš Zitmanis, born in 1952, trained at the Janis Rozentāls Rīga Secondary Art School and subsequently graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, where he had specialised in monumental painting. While based in Daugavpils between 1978 and 1990, he led an active exhibition life, often displaying with the local art group. A member of the Latvian Artists Union since 1986, Zitmanis also did commission work in object and interior design and monumental painting for the country’s Art Fund. Having relocated to Liepāja in 1991, he kept exhibiting with the Union’s local branch until 1996, when he set sail for yet another move. From then until 2019, Zitmanis worked in metals engineering, lending his skill and expertise to dozens of construction projects across Latvia and Northern Europe. Eventually, the year 2021 marked a return to painting. Today, Zitmanis is represented in public collections such as the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Daugavpils Local History and Art Museum, the Latvian Artists Union Museum and the Krāslava Municipality Museum. His work is also held in private collections domestically and internationally.
Exhibition period: 29.11.2024–23.02.2025
Photo: Mārtiņš Zitmanis, Field, acrylic on mdf, 85 x 85 cm, 2023
