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This is another project away from the metropolitan fuss and snobbery, my favorite “provincial” format, closer to the Earth and Man, is the best fit for the new sincerity of meta-modernity. I respect my viewers, so I choose direct and honest dialog, my exhibitions are always complemented by first-person annotations. I am convinced that it is the Person who makes a place, so this exhibition with direct references to Rundale and the people of this region. The vast Zemgale plains with the ever fleeing horizon line dispose to reflect on the eternal...

The exhibition is an allusion to Parajanov's multicultural oeuvre, as well as to my own personal “silk road” in art, connecting East and West. A white silk thread runs through all my paintings. It is a line of fate, a neurography of subtle emotional states. Sometimes the thread nests or folds into a graceful lace, and sometimes it gathers into a tight and tense knot, tied in search of answers to the main questions of the universe.

Often instead of canvas I use canvases with history, woven and hand-embroidered antique tablecloths or even sheets. This makes the painting process very personal, even intimate. I prime these fabrics using an old traditional recipe with ash and honey. I use ashes from the ritual bonfire of Sommer Solstice night, where last year's floral wreath and the old Christmas tree were burned. “I am interested in how form turns into ash,” Parajanov wrote. I, in turn, am excited by the creative search for new meanings and visual forms in the ashes of bygone images of the past.

A scrap of folk costume, a tiny scrap of wedding lace, a hand-embroidered handkerchief with someone's initials, faded by time... These fragments of human lives and destinies, sewn into a large-format canvas, are exhibited from both sides, giving the viewer an opportunity to look at the other side of the process. And then the two sides of the same coin are folded into a coherent narrative with an open ending. This is also a reference to Parajanov's own technique, with his love of working with artifacts of the past (including fabric scraps), folding these fragments into whimsical collages and assemblages.

In the era of feral capitalism, when we are literally drowning in stamped consumer goods and megabytes of information garbage, Man absolutely needs to do something with his own hands, without the mediation of technology, to feel his uniqueness. Manual labor gives us the opportunity to feel our belonging to the miracle of creation and brings us closer to God.

Some of my works were framed with the help of craftsmen and needlewomen from Rundale. There is something sacred in folk ornament, all fundamental human values are encoded in it. I also have a special relationship with lace, for me it is a symbol of the painstaking work of Man in his eternal yearning for beauty. All the laces on my paintings are painted by hand and never repeated. Sometimes I remind myself of a persistent spider, which continues to patiently weave its magical web in spite of all the hardships. Often circumstances force me to start over again and again... In essence, art is a monastic service, talent is a heavy cross.

My paintings are extremely tactile, these canvases literally keep the warmth of the hands of their creator. I work in a complex technique of layering, which requires a lot of time and complete immersion in the process. Thanks to the multi-layered surface the painting becomes a living organism in the space of the beholder. Painting implies unhurried contemplation and immersion in meanings. It is a good way to pull the viewer out of the clutches of virtual reality, reminding him that the real world is much more multifaceted than the replicated pictures in a smartphone.

Parajanov turned artifacts of the past into manifestos of the future and quoted a lot from the great world paintings. In my works, Parajanov himself often becomes a quotation, using newspaper clippings, excerpts from Parajanov's own texts and fragments of Andersen's works as collage. The painting “Miracle in Rundale” is an allusion to Parajanov's “Miracle in Odense”. The fairy-tale improvisation on the theme of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales was inspired by Parajanov's Latvian vacations, views of old Riga and a concert in the Dome Cathedral.

I love to combine Armenian motifs with traditional Latvian folk patterns in my works, as well as to translate the ancient Eastern tradition in a new way. An example of such an incredible cocktail will be the monumental canvas “Suzane”, on which I will work directly in the exhibition hall during the week after the opening of the exhibition.

You may bring a piece of linen or cotton cloth that is meaningful to you, with an optional oral or written backstory attached. I will sew these fragments of such different lives into a cohesive canvas for a new painting.

In these days of people being divided to rule, any act of unity and humanity matters.


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