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José Manuel Ciria Before the Title, Beyond the Surface

José Manuel Ciria Before the Title, Beyond the Surface   I decided to write this text about José Manuel Ciria as the words flashed back to me from memories. As the ideas emerged. In a kind of verbal abstract expressionism. It is totally surreal, because this has nothing to do with his work or the unconscious, nor unconsciousness. Expressing it in legal terms, as it were. I am sitting in front of a window from which all I can see is the sea. A vast monochrome sea. Dark, with subtle, veiny white crests. There is no land to be seen. The sky is a soft blue and white. This sequential repetition is actually a perfect abstract exercise, however real it may appear at a glance or to superficial interpretation. I am thinking about paintings by José Manuel Ciria, and his Before the Title, Beyond the Surface exhibition. I can find no references to his colour ranges that appear to spring from the bowels of the Earth rather than from the depths of the sea. Reds, blacks, earthy tones, like volcanic rocks. Despite this, I can imagine his pictures floating on the surface. Not adrift, simply lending intensity to the monotonous horizon. I would link this imaginary sequence with one of his painting installations where the pictures were scattered on the cold walls of a museum, in the Abstract Memory series, to be precise. Memory is as abstract as the environment that surrounds me. That is why my visual relationships are as abstract as his pictures.

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM MARK ROTHKO 2015” DAUGAVPILS, 15. – 26.09.2015.

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM MARK ROTHKO 2015” DAUGAVPILS, 15. – 26.09.2015.   The international symposium “Mark Rothko 2015” is a meeting place for masters of painting in Daugavpils - in the city where Mark Rothko was born. They meet for the eleventh time already to create works of painting to commemorate the master of painting and add to the collection of contemporary painting of Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. This year, the closing exhibition of the symposium is seen along with the works by the master of Latvian painting, Valdis Bušs. Often, Matisse is considered Bušs’s predecessor in painting. The artist himself has never denied it too. The “Red Room” by Matisse was the work which attracted attention and left impact on Rothko’s painting as well. Can we feel the influence of the peculiar atmosphere of Rothko, Matisse and Daugavpils in works created at the 11th International Symposium “Mark Rothko 2015”?  Its immediate presence is felt in both oil paintings and acrylic canvases, and in water-color paintings as well, the latter being widely represented this year. 11 artists from 8 countries demonstrate their sensations and mastery at the symposium this year: Michail Lalov (Bulgaria); Siraj Saxena (India); Merav Shinn Ben-Alon (Israel); Alexander Selivanov (Russia); Karīna Korotkova and Sandra Strēle (Latvia); Voldemaras Barakauskas and Dainius Trumpis (Lithuania); Beate Gjersvold (Norway); Monika Falke and Janine Gerber (Germany). The touch of the brush upon the canvas or paper in Daugavpils has become also a testimony to art history for each artist personally, creating their own biography in art and marking the continuation of a stable tradition for the city of Daugavpils. Rothko Centre has become spiritually richer with a series of wonderful compositions, which embody sensations and impressions, meetings, conversations, Rothko, Daugavpils, Latgale, Latvia…

Valdis Bušs What is the Truth?

  Valdis Bušs What is the Truth? Through making logical judgments an individual can predict the consequences of one’s own and other people’s actions, building different models of thoughts which depict the real world in the past, present and future. Man always thinks in the language he knows best of all! Is the artist’s language art? What is art? It seems that the question about what art is has never worried the outstanding landscapist from Latgale, Valdis Bušs, since through the language of his painting as well as through the huge number of his works he has said so much about the past and the present and has aspired towards the realization of the dreams about the future, allowing us to enjoy “struggle”, “power”, “mission” and “idea”, “light”, “game”, “flame” and innumerable “green suns”. Why green, why compositions so greatly contrasting in color? Is the sun green, or the sky yellow, or the grass white, is the horizon red? And who can assert that they are not? What is the truth?

International Ceramic Art Symposium CERAMIC LABORATORY Final Exhibition

International Ceramic Art Symposium CERAMIC LABORATORY Final Exhibition   Traditionally, the International Ceramic Art Symposium CERAMIC LABORATORY ends with the opening of the closing exhibition of the symposium, at which the creative facets of each symposium participant are extensively revealed in the content, form and innumerable experiments. The symposium assembled well-known ceramists from Egypt, Israel, Poland, Rumania, Latvia, Finland, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine, who have created unique ceramic compositions and by their work have enhanced the development of the processes of contemporary ceramic art. This time, the artists depict the world’s breath and what they have experienced in this region through different ideas, through frequently dominating stylized and also direct features of fauna and flora, and, naturally, man and things essential for a human as well as ceramic art forms are not neglected either, which all can be interpreted as philosophical touches implemented in a ceramic material. The exhibition in Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center will be on view from August 29 to October 10, 2015. The exhibition is supplemented with photos taken by Tatjana Pedčenko (Ukraine), thereby documenting the process of the symposium. Since August 29, 2015, the fire sculpture “The Gate” created by Andrejs Sobjaņins (Ukraine) can be seen in the courtyard of the Rothko Center.  

Bent Holstein exhibition „FERNWEH”

  Bent Holstein exhibition „FERNWEH" Bent Holstein uses a German word to describe the main drive in his art: Fernweh. The English translation is Wanderlust, but the combination of the two words is a perfect guide to understanding the art of the 73-year old Danish artist. He constantly wants to be somewhere else and his lust to wander into different places is insatiable. These places must have water or mountains and they must have light. Interesting or dramatic light. ”Why are we always attracted to water? Why do you sail?” he asks and adds ”My art is always coming from somewhere else. My paintings are always painted in my Studio in Copenhagen, but my visions come from The Caribbean, Mexico,. Water is a key element. My best moments are when fishing ”The Flats” in The Florida Keys. The water is a few inches deep. I cannot see the coast. It’s like standing inside a huge soap-bubble. You cannot distinguish water from land – it’s a blurry transition and it fascinates me.” Bent Holstein points at several new paintings, ready for shipment to Latvia and repeats ”They are not naturalistic. I’ll go mad, if I painted nature.” But he does depict nature. His very own interpretation of natural elements. ”Why does water and mountains fascinate me” he asks and answers his own question immediately ”We Danes are originally lowland farmers. We are strangely attracted to dangerous places like mountains. Both mountains and water demand great respect. There are life-threatening cliffs, ravines, sharks and violent currents. And the difficulties of painting this array of challenges and threats are enormous”.

Helga Kreuzritter “A GLANCE AT FIVE DECADES OF SCULPTING AND PAINTING”

  Helga Kreuzritter "A GLANCE AT FIVE DECADES OF SCULPTING AND PAINTING"   "I try to offer aesthetic thoughts. The fact that even some of the works are occasionally provoking is probably unavoidable and this is used by me over and over to address the viewer directly. I'm always happy when in this way I can develop conversations with my viewers, for example, at openings."

Inese Āboliņa, Skaidrīte Cihovska, Violetas Jātniece, Izabella Krolle, Kornēlija Ozoliņa un Silvija Šmidkena exhibition „CERAMICS OF ĶĪPSALA”

Inese Āboliņa, Skaidrīte Cihovska, Violetas Jātniece, Izabella Krolle, Kornēlija Ozoliņa un Silvija Šmidkena exhibition „CERAMICS OF ĶĪPSALA" Ceramics of Ķīpsala – the phenomenon of Latvian art and culture of the second half of the 20th century, that has formed several generations of ceramists and has enabled strengthening of Latvian traditions in ceramics and the contemporary ceramics in Latvia in general. This was a bridge that linked the traditional and professional ceramics, taking the best from both sides, and this bridge was built by people, by artists.

CYBERNETIC PAINTING OF SIGURDS VĪDZIRKSTE THE LOST CODE

Sigurds Vidzirkste- New York Avant-Gardist exhibition „BLACK SUN".                 I am not inclined to attach great value to words. Works created from words are only a performance but not a creation. They are limited. They are only mere reflections of the direct perception. I would rather value works that grow out in the direct process of work. Painting should take place just in the physical world. The first creative idea lacks form. It is a pure essence that does not contain means of expression in itself. But then there is a second created stage of the idea with form and development which can be expressed in symbols. The idea per se is not creative, but it possesses magnetic attraction and aura which suit for a further development of new ideas.

Leonid Tugalev exhibition „FotoGrāfs”

Leonid Tugalev exhibition „FotoGrāfs"   Leonid Tugalev FotoGrāfs   I, Leonid Tugalev, was born in Riga, on the 8th of August, 1945. My Byelorussian grandmother was a witch. My mother was engaged in witchcraft, too. My father had a snake's wisdom, but the war made him nervous. They are all now in the Kingdom of heaven. I am a heathen. I believe in Nature.   I have been a workman in a sawmill, an engineer in the Institute of Design, a photographer for a magazine... Now I have a bureau of architects. I have, as long as...   The first pictures I took were of rugby games. They were followed by portraits, or images, to be more exact. Vera - my wife - was modelling for me. Later came celebrities of Latvian arts. Reportages. Lots of exhibitions. Many awards.

Maria Maier exhibition „BLOSSOM TIME”

Maria Maier Blossom Time Photographs and Paper Works Maria Maier was born in 1954, Amberg (Germany), and has studied pedagogy and history of art. Since 1992, after a lasting period of pedagogical activity and many study and job trips while staying in South-East Asia, Central America and Africa, M. Maier is a free-lancer. She lives and works in Kofering and Regensburg. During her long experience of exhibitions she has arranged several solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions held in museums, art societies and galleries in Germany and abroad. Her works are seen in many collections and are exhibited in several public places. In 2005, the artist was awarded the scholarship of Virginia Center for Creative Arts in the USA, but in 2011 – the scholarship of Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland.