Archive

A different Martinsons

To celebrate the 88th birthday of Pēteris Martinsons, Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre suggests taking a different view on the artist through an exhibition aptly named “A Different Martinsons”. It features select artwork from the Rothko Centre collection that depicts Pēteris Martinsons as he appeared to every artist – different and unique. Ceramic artist, educator and architect Pēteris Martinsons (1931-2013) had a highly charismatic persona. A true professional in the field of ceramics, a figure of authority among his many students and followers, a stage designer, actor, alpinist and nature lover, blessed with great wisdom, a broad knowledge of the world and unique suggestive powers. His active lifestyle and irresistible personality drew people like a magnet. Every moment spent with the artist was inspiring and left a huge impact, which was retained in lasting memories and tangible artistic outputs.

V international textile and fiber art symposium

The international textile and fibre art symposium is as old as Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. For the fifth consecutive time, it brings together artists who work in textile and fibre and promotes contemporary textile art in a region where traditional forms of textile are much more widespread, not least because of their presence in textile education programmes in Daugavpils and elsewhere in Latvia. Traditionally, the textile and fibre art symposium is organised in autumn when nature has shed its splendid cloak of leaves and flowers. One would think that artists should lack adequate sources of inspiration for their artwork at this bare time of year. However, walks through Daugavpils and more extended trips across Latgale give artists plenty of inspiration in local fauna and flora to create magnificent, also bright and vivid textile and fibre art arrangements.

Lilija Zeiļa

TRACES. TOUCH. VERSATILITY Lilija Zeiļa is a master. Potter, ceramicist, artist. She was born in Daugavpils in 1958. For nearly 40 years, her hands have been busy with clay, which continues to set the course of her life and daily routines and yield itself to her will. To celebrate her anniversary, Lilija Zeiļa has prepared a solo exhibition featuring three groups of work – Traces. Touch. Versatility.

Izabella Krolle

ARTERY In her solo exhibition ARTERY, Izabella Krolle poses questions that are vital to all artists and attempts to answer them in her own way. This exhibition is like a conceptual theatre of images, assembled into a complex yet holistic configuration. It makes no attempt to place any one piece in the limelight but rather presents them as a whole with an emphasis on interaction patterns and subtle games of relationships. What keeps the artist alive? What urges her to create, again and again? What are the origins of the artist’s inspiration, imagery and creative drive or spark?

A FORERUNNER OF SWISS IMPRESSIONISM

JULIUS VOEGTLI (1879 - 1944) The Rediscovery of an Eminent Swiss Landscape Painter and Portraitist Julius Voegtli was born in March 1879 in Malters, western Switzerland. He had his training as a decorative painter at the Gewerbeschule [Vocational school] in Basel and in a traineeship in Basel. He also studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. There, he was particularly interested in landscape painting and became enthusiastic about the impressionism of the French masters, namely Cezanne.

COLOURS OF KURZEME / Group exhibition of artists from Talsi

Owing to its location in the west of Latvia, Kurzeme is probably less known in Daugavpils and Latgale than geographically closer regions such as Vidzeme or Sēlija… Perhaps the same is true with local knowledge about the art and artists of Kurzeme. Some art theorists have questioned the concept of a locally specific Kurzeme art… And yet, for over 30 years the name of an art group from Talsi, popularly known as the Talsi Bush Art Group, rings loud and clear across Latvian art space.

ESTONIA 100 IN LATVIA

It is a pleasure to organise an exhibition of the Association of Estonian Printmakers at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. I have to admit that the artists taking part in this exhibition are almost the same as those who were active “in the old times”, i.e. before the general crisis in printmaking. But I am not saying that the old times were ideal. I became president of our association seven years ago, when there was a crisis both in the economy and in the medium of printmaking. During the course of these seven years, many things have changed in the art world, including the realm of printmaking. For example, printmaking has gained popularity and escalated to the second place among student candidates of the Art Academies in Riga and Vilnius. This is similar to the situation at our Estonian Art Institute in the Soviet times.

EUROPEAN TAPESTRY FORUM

We are both proud and delighted to present and celebrate the fifth European tapestry show ARTAPESTRY5 – a contemporary showcase of tapestries from 12 European countries. We are proud that European Tapestry Forum (ETF) during in only a short number of years, has succeeded in creating a platform for European tapestry artists and has established a position on the international tapestry scene. In 2001 a score of visionary tapestry weavers had a dream of promoting and improving the visibility of tapestry art in Europe and enabling it to reclaim its position as a challenging artform. ETF has gained valuable experience in the past 20 years by working with artists, curators and experts.

DIARY OF DVINSK FORTRESS

During the years of visiting Mark Rothko Art Centre in Daugavpils, the surroundings and the mystery of the fortress have had an unconscious effect. Old architecture, especially the cultural layers that had formed over time, affect you through their multi-layered textures as if from the subtle depths of old frescoes. Everything smells like mature French cheese. When I feel this scent, it charms me by its texture. I cannot pass quietly through graffiti. Everything here compels me to take my camera and communicate with the surroundings through the whispers of graphics. This scent is captured while inhaling the smell of intercultural layers of old barracks and buildings.

SILVA LINARTE

SCENES FROM THE SOUL Delicate, mysterious and sensitive painting, laconic in terms of language yet deep when it comes to emotional experience, which shifts between joy and love, sadness and tragedy, and leads to reflection about eternity in nature and one’s immediate surroundings. Art that mesmerises with an interplay of light and dark – amidst faint outlines of objects, flowers or drapes, barely traceable in the half-light, an occasional burst of brilliant light – a ray of sunshine or a moonbeam highlighting a silhouette, sending one away from reality and into a world of illusion. Painting with smooth transitions where the subject is at once important and not, while the way it is conveyed remains ever essential. A mysterious and enchanting world, expressed in half-words – amidst flashes of light and dark both indoors and out in the open.