Archive

Ilona Vilka Sea, time, dreams…

Photography excites, photography grabs your attention, photography plunges you into memories of the captured moment, photography animates. Ilona Vilka is captivated by seascape photography. She took it up seriously in 2010. Soon enough, in 2015, the artist opened her first photo exhibition, “Sea”, in Jāņa Sēta. A number of exhibitions followed at regular intervals, both in Latvia and abroad. The artist has published a set of postcards with seascape photography, several albums as well as pocket calendars for 2016 and 2017. Ilona’s versatility is highlighted by another line of interest – she also writes poetry. Her debut collection “Time and Rosy Dreams” was published in 2015.

Ričardas Garbačiauskas MY OWN TERRITORIES

This exhibition comprises an array of recent works encompassing an important part of artistic expression, including that of music and fine arts, namely, correlation of space (the field of picture) and spot (as the object). This correlation arranges the rhythm, which, in its way, determines certain repetitions of the spots – or objects – to be compared to long and short musical notes. So the rhythm, which is absolutely everywhere, is an essential condition of the existence of our cosmic surroundings, our micro- and macro world. This position is the fundamental approach to the construction of works, which enables me to speak the language of extremely generalised, minimised, primitivistic forms and shapes. They are something like archaic signs, anonymous, yet interacting shapes of figures from the recent world. The constituent of picture colours is of no less importance in creating the emotional and aesthetical mood. Ričardas Garbačiauskas

UNA GURA PUMPUNELLA

With her project “ PUMPUNELLA ”, Una Gura celebrates a big anniversary and a full return to ceramics. The title of the project is derived from the artist’s nickname, Unella, given to her by members of Daugavpils Clay Art Centre, and from the pimple-like specks that cover her abstract ceramic works. The artist admits that preparation for this exhibition, which involved creation of a number of large-scale ceramic objects, reminded her of her student years at the Ceramic Department of Rēzekne Secondary School of Applied Arts, where her graduation project involved making large-format vessels. Now as then, the artist finds this process both frustrating and exciting: “It may be hard to get started, but, once you are in it, you cannot tear yourself away from clay. And ideas drive ideas!”

SILVIJA ŠMIDKENA AND STILL, AS EVER…

Silvija Šmidkena was born in Rīga in 1935. In 1954, she graduated from the Ceramics Department of Rīga Secondary School of Applied Arts, in 1960 – from the State Art Academy of Latvia, whereafter she was accepted into the Artists’ Union. Silvija Šmidkena was an active and long-term member of the Union’s board, chairing its ceramics section. She also sat on the expert commission of the Ministry of Culture and different art panels as well as contributed to the organisation of various exhibitions. For many years, Silvija Šmidkena helped organise the Latvian SSR Art Holding’s creative and experimental ceramic workshops in Ķīpsala, located at number 13 Ballast Dam, and was actively involved with the workshops’ renovation during 1980s, when artist studios were refurbished and new display spaces created for Latvian applied art.

Egils Rozenbergs, Pēteris Sidars CONTRASTS

Two contemporaries, two world-renowned Latvian textile artists, two creative personalities with their own views on processes and phenomena, on tings seen in nature, explored in travels and identified in history.

Landscape and Power

Landscape and Power is the title of my continuous project since 2007. It contains three topics: No place, Tracks, and Landscape and Lines. The three topics are fused into one project. The title comes from the book by art historian W. J. T. Mitchell, published in 2002 (rev. ed.). Mitchell has investigated landscape painting through history and explored how past and present artists express themselves through landscape.

Group exhibition with four Danish artists.

A new evaluation of figurative art in a changing world Today the sharp distinction between figurative and abstract art has become blurred and replaced by many artistic strategies in which the two modes of expression are united to create new and unexpected interpretations of our volatile and infinite world. The figure, which has long been denied access to the artistic realm, thus resurfaces, but in a new context and with new challenges.

EXHIBITION OF IV INTERNATIONAL TEXTILE AND FIBER ART SYMPOSIUM

Latgalian culture has long traditions of textile art. Over the last 50 years, their professional development in Latvia has coincided with moving away from purely utilitarian household objects to a quest for constant changes and turning points in techniques, materials and soaring of the imagination.

VI th international Latgale Graphic Symposium

For the sixth time, visitors to the Rothko Centre can enjoy an international graphic show, which is the outcome of the annual International Latgale Graphic Symposium. It has brought together artists from 10 different countries, each of them with a unique artistic hand and vision, offering to the audience the fruits of their labour, expressed in the language of graphic art.

INFINITY OF ART – POLISH VIEW

The exhibition “ The Infinity of Art – Polish View ” presents completely different creative attitudes. Artists, however, are united in a sensual and lyrical reception of the world. They are also affiliated by the Warsaw District of the Polish Association of Visual Artists. The artists belong to various generations, which is also reflected in their paintings.