Archive

PERSON AND TIME

International Graphic Art Exhibition

Paintings

Marc Renard (Belgium)

The Garden of Forking Paths

Marina Kapilova

PAINTING

Leonid Schemelev

Sense of Clay

Evalds Vasilevskis

Collections of ideas

Valda Padkalne

RIGHT HAND

The expression “right hand” is typically used in a positive sense.

ART NOUVEAU

Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation exhibition   The relatively quiet time without wars, revolutions or military coups in the period from 1890 to 1914, which is called la belle époque, was interrupted by the new art nouveau style. It conspicuously launched at the World's Fair held in Paris, although that new art had been spreading since the mid-1890s. The new style appeared under the influence of new aesthetics based on a combination of utility and beauty, stylization of the forms of living nature (especially aquatic vegetation and marine wildlife), diversity of motives and their decorativeness, and asymmetry of patterns. It looked for inspiration in mystical medieval visions of art, symbolist literature, Oriental art, and national sources.

SYNERGY

What is synergy? In simple words, the result is greater than the sum total of the contributions of the parties involved total. Mathematically, it might look like this: 2 + 2 = 5, and, of course, you can have any other value instead of 5. The result is higher than the sum total of individual parts. Synergy can combine and unlock the huge strength and potential that all humans have. The creative process is difficult to predict – it is hard to say how it might end or where it might lead. Nor is it possible to foresee all the new challenges one might have to face along the way. The SYNERGY of our family is the proverbial shoulder, mutual support and tending of our creative spirit. Experiencing life through all our senses and from different viewpoints, and combining it all in one great, joint worldview, with each family member working in their own artistic discipline.

ANIMALISM

PHILIPPE SHALAYEV Philipp Shalayev (1929, Russia – 2008, Latvia) – “worker and painter”, representative of naïve art, animalist and portraitist. He organised his first exhibition while still at school, just 11 years old. He had been no stranger to hard labour since teenage years: barely 14 years old, he was helping his mother in hard rural jobs, initially on a farm, later in a railway support station; a few years were spent in a shoe workshop. Having trained as a high-class instrument mechanic, Shalayev started working at a turbomechanic plant in Rīga. Initially, he learnt drawing and painting through self-schooling, mainly from art books. Later, at the age of 32, Shalayev joined the arts studio at the culture centre of State Electrotechnical Factory, where he studied under the tutelage of prominent Latvian painter, Uldis Zemzars. As Shalayev's first art teacher, Zemzars made the following comment on his work: “His art is expressive. He is friends with nature and animals. [..] That is why he paints his beasts with a human soul, primarily, his own. We look at his wolf, bear or tiger, and, through them, he looks back at us, speaks to us."