Lights On. Tennis.
Lights On. Tennis.
The subjects of Ivanovs’ large scale paintings are a selection of the world’s top tennis players. Among others, the collection includes Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, Ernests Gulbis and Nikolay Davydenko, who were all present in the tournament and came to see and sign the paintings.
Ivanovs’ intention was to capture a moment in time, a fragment of each tennis player’s inner world whilst on court. According to the artist, the intense light projected on the tennis court during matches occasionally reveals a more thorough understanding of the personal battles that each tennis player undergoes.
Pop culture icons and masterpieces by the old masters, tabloid celebrities, actors, musicians, athletes, and porn stars—these are the most common subjects in Ivanovs’ paintings. He is interested in stars as a cultural phenomenon and the visual power of glossy beauty, which the artist knows how to both harness and ironically subvert. For several decades now, Ivanovs has consistently worked in his self-invented linear technique, combining the stylistic traditions of Pop Art and photorealism. However, in terms of content, his painting takes a different path. By transferring a photograph onto canvas, the artist not only meticulously addresses technical and decorative challenges but also imbues his characters with emotional and psychological depth, which is revealed to the viewer in the paintings.
The painting “Stars. Lights On. Ernests Gulbis” was acquired by Latvian National Museum of Art and depicts the famous Latvian tennis player Ernests Gulbis. Around 2008, his sports career in the tennis world experienced a rapid rise. The media frenzy propelled him to stardom, catapulting him onto the pedestal of fame. Ritums Ivanovs not only portrays a specific tennis player but, as a chronicler, also leaves a record of the face of 21st-century popular culture in Latvia and around the world.