Home » Entertainment » “Forest” in paintings and “Cosmic Sadness” in photographs – new exhibitions in Riga / Article / LSM.lv

“Forest” in paintings and “Cosmic Sadness” in photographs – new exhibitions in Riga / Article / LSM.lv

On the evening of September 9, solo exhibitions of representatives of two different fields of art were opened in two galleries in Riga. In the gallery of Kalnciems quarter, “Mežs” paintings by artist and pedagogue Agata Muze have entered. But the documentary, thoughtfully ironic street photography exhibition “Cosmic Sadness” by the artist and photographer Andrejs Strokins opens its doors at the ISSP Gallery in Berga Bazaar.

Artist and teacher Agata Muze comes from a family of artists, and her main source of inspiration is nature. In preparation for the solo exhibition, the forest was purposefully painted for several years. The result can be seen in the Kalnciems Quarter Gallery in the exhibition “Forest”, during which the artist has remembered the first impulse from the times of Janis Rozentāls Art School.

“I have a lot of pines, my main source of inspiration is mostly Slītere district.

But as my first memory of pine trees and painting is from the practice of “Rosenthal School”, where we were with class teacher Baiba Vegeri and she said with a delighted voice: look, there in the forest, you see how many pine trunks are red, how beautiful they are, ”Says artist Agata Muze.

Agata Muze teaches drawing, painting and composition design to students of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology of the University of Latvia, also teaches private lessons and tries to inspire students to paint what is important for everyone.

“If you see and it causes some vibration inside you, then it is worth painting. Which has given you inexplicable joy and maybe a kind of surprise, ”says the artist. “Painting is happiness! Other times go to the workshop and think – such a gift that you have been given, that there is an activity that brings you great joy. ”

Meanwhile, the only space in Latvia dedicated to contemporary photography – the ISSP Gallery in Berga Bazaar – has a solo exhibition of photographer Andrejs Strokins “Cosmic Sadness”. It is included in the program of “Riga Photography Biennale 2020”.

“Cosmic Sadness” is the same self-ironic name. I try to photograph my inner emotions, feelings – how melancholy alternates with irony, ”explains the photographer Andrejs Strokins.

Andrejs Strokins’ documentary street diary-style visual diary, taken with a mobile phone, is an experiment to make a private experience public.

I started taking pictures with my mobile phone when Instragram started. I was interested in new technologies and how people at the time were trying to visually enhance a low-quality digital image with filters that mimic analog photography. And in my case, there’s still the 4: 5 format, which is typical of the large-format cameras used in the 19th-century studio, as a reference to analog, but it’s of course digital. In a way, the mobile phone is an ideal spy camera, because no one takes it seriously, ”continues Strokins.

The author uses dull bluish photo filters, reflecting on the nostalgia for the digital generation after the analog era.

“What interests me is inner feelings.

I try to pull the absurd out of the ordinary everyday life, to frame the everyday absurdity, ”the artist notes.

Commenting on how saturated the world is with pictures, Strokin says: “Everything is bad, all that remains is sadness. I have no answer. And sometimes there is no motivation to take pictures of something, because as if everything is captured, and less and less we go into both photography and texts. We keep up with new and new information. This project has lived a long life on Instagram, where a person unrolls his friends tape and so fast time what he likes, without going into much detail. ”

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