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The exhibition “ ILLUSION OF TENDERNESS” from the painting collection of Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre.

The once dominant view of the female nature as inherently tender, delicate and docile is now increasingly contested as subjective and delusional, rooted in man-made myth rather than objective reality. The present-day image of a modern female is deeply dissonant with past conceptions as it incorporates new qualities, perspectives and features. And yet, is tenderness really a mere illusion?

UGUNĪ

Ovidiu Leuce, Delia Maxim, Pınar Baklan Önal                                       UGUNĪ, the concluding exhibition of the residency programme by Latvian Centre of Contemporary Ceramics, is held in cooperation with Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. It is a joint project by three young ceramic artists who, for an entire month, worked side by side in Ceramic Laboratory in Daugavpils Fortress. A residency is a very special time and space where artists can be free from daily cares and worries, liberated from the trivia of organising their day-to-day lives. Instead, they are able to immerse themselves fully into creative processes, develop their skills and experiment with materials. It is a time for research, which often yields unexpected results that even the artist could not have hoped for.

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.

Play of light and dark

Inta Celmiņa, Edvards Grūbe Painting will exist as long as light itself – colour and shape can appear in the most incredible ways, either through the artist’s conscious effort and intention or as unexpected twists of the endless game of themes, techniques and compositional arrangements. The title chosen by artists Inta Celmiņa and Edvards Grūbe for their joint exhibition project at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, at first glance, can seem frivolous and lacking proper gravitas. And yet, if we take care not to downplay the meaning of game to its narrowest sense and imagine our lives as journeys of perception, we cannot help but admit that we are all players in a universal game, so why not apply this term to artistic processes? The outcome of this game is known only to the players involved, but we see their artwork that has value in its own right inasmuch as it reveals the lived experience of each artist, things either specific to their backgrounds or common to all.

Oļgerts Krauklis. Architecture in Painting

Being versatile and achieving success in different roles is something not many can accomplish. Architect and painter Oļģerts Krauklis is among the few who stand out. Perhaps due to having been blessed with extra talents and gifts that have helped him achieve many things, maintain a broad and open worldview in the most diverse spheres of activity, retain a sense of humour, remember a wealth of events and facts and be able to reshape the strands of these experiences into unique urban and rural landscapes that delight the eye with astonishing precision of aerial and linear perspectives.

Moments

This exhibition is a remarkably vibrant kaleidoscope of moments frozen in time, happy and unrepeatable bursts of creative output by an brilliant master of watercolour painting. Embodied in exquisitely charming and professionally executed works, these moments allow touching a truly unique phenomenon in the history of Vitebsk watercolour school. Exaggerations aside, Alexander Karpan (1953-2016) is its great success and pride, one of the most talented Belarusian watercolour painters of the late 20th – early 21st century. And the artist’s body of work is a wonderful case in point to this argument.

Wang Shaojun. Internal Uniformity

Fundamental changes occurred to the context of the entire Chinese contemporary art over the past few decades, among which the most austere change comes from the surging western art concepts and styles, stimulating the transformation of Chinese art into creative ideas and methods and providing possible orientations for art-related thinking and creative practices. Wang Shaojun’s refinements of language in art keep everything well joined up and heading towards the internal, so that the constantly deepening thoughts and practices lead to his personalized artistic style as they merge into his artistic character.

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty

The truth (in Latin “veritas”) is the correspondence between a proposition and the reality to which this proposition refers. However, this definition of truth is not the only one, there are many definitions of the word and many classical controversies around the various theories of truth. “Truth” involves both the quality of “faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, sincerity, veracity”, and that of “agreement with fact or reality”. In a general sense, it stands against falsehood.

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.