Make More Art. Bastejs Gallery
At the end of the summer, Bastejs Gallery will showcase a new exhibition of works by Ritums Ivanovs in its new Jurmala space, featuring works from recent years exhibited at international art fairs Paper Positions Basel 2022, Art Salon Zürich 2023 and Art On Paper Amsterdam 2024.
The exhibition is permeated by Andy Warhol's presence in large-scale triptychs, porcelain plates and drawings, as well as in his latest series Palettes. A palette as an emotional layering, a nuance of colour, a mood in a portrait.
Andy Warhol's expression "Make More Art" resonates further even now in 2024.
Oil paintings, porcelain painting, works on paper.
The exhibition is permeated by Andy Warhol's presence in large-scale triptychs, porcelain plates and drawings, as well as in his latest series Palettes. A palette as an emotional layering, a nuance of colour, a mood in a portrait.
Andy Warhol's expression "Make More Art" resonates further even now in 2024.
Oil paintings, porcelain painting, works on paper.
Ritums Ivanovs. The Palette Series 2024: The palette is one of the artist´s most important tools, usually kept in the studio (the artist´s sacred space) and not taken out of there. The palette itself is a technical place where colours are mixed, where the technique of working with pigment is understood, how thick or thin the colour should be applied, mixing with binders, varnishes and oils.
Emotional, sensual ideas and hunches get materialised on the palette. It is a field where ideas meet material substance, acquiring an independent and self-sufficient image in movement. It is my job to be in direct contact with the palette and to observe the transformations that take place there and to transfer what I need onto the canvas in the form of a painting.
I often use scraps of primed canvas for mixing colours. They have accumulated over the years as a kind of colour diary that I have kept for over 10 years now, not wanting to throw them away as an unnecessary by-product of painting. On the contrary, these pieces of fabric with various paint residues have inspired a new 2024 series of paintings called Palettes. So, both literally and symbolically, these are palettes. On the already existing layer of shrunken paint, which forms an interesting underpainting (a name for a prepared painting surface), I paint portraits of painters, watching and observing how they interact and play with the peculiar surface.
Surprises, coincidences, unplanned dynamics, new discoveries are present in this series, painted on my old palettes and telling the story of an artistic territory that is a vast palette in itself ̶ and this is not just me saying that. The Latvian painter Boriss Bērziņš once said that it would take like a whole phone book to write down all his influences. I have just named it a Palette.
Exhibition open until October 30
Bastejs Gallery
Latvia, Jūrmala, Priedaine, Skultes iela 10
Phone +371 29136840
Opening times:
Mo-Tue appointments only
Wed-Fri 2-6PM
Sat 12-4PM
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