Young Latvian Artists: Who to Watch Out For

Katrina Avotina
(Katrīna Avotiņa)

Imagine: you have been surrounded by art since childhood. In your parents’ house there are multiple easels and canvas, tubes of paint and beautiful long brushes. How can you not grow up as an artist in such an environment? Katrīna Avotiņa knows all about it.

The artist paints in bright colors – in a lightly naive way – paintings, creating whole worlds of bizzare: houses piling on one another, blooming gardens, animals endowed with human features.

The main inspiration for Katrīna Avotinia was the Austrian artist Friedrich Hundertwasser, known for his lively motley works. The same love and interest for life can also be seen in Katrina Avotiņa’s work.

Katrīna Avotiņa

Jana Brike
(Jana Brike)

For artist Yana Brike, her work is a visual and poetic autobiography, presenting a search for an answer to the question of what it means to be human.

Jana works in the genre of pop surrealism. It is a trend based on various symbols of pop culture, which acquire surreal and often hypertrophied forms. In her works, the artist focuses on human states of mind: dreams, love, longing, and pain. Perhaps that’s exactly why they are so moving.

Jana started taking part in international exhibitions when she was still a teenager, and now she has more than 13 personal exhibitions in different parts of the world.

Jana Brike

Ieva Baklane
(Ieva Baklane)

Ieva Baklāne works are in styles of abstractionism and realism. First of two arose from her love of architecture and structure as such, but realism, she says, comes from her classical art education.

A striking feature of the artist’s work is the amazing “southern light”. It seems to happen only during summertime on the shores of warm calm seas. Therefore Ieva Baklāne drew inspiration from Spain, Italy and South America.Her paintings can be seen in private collections in Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, USA, China, Poland, Portugal and France.

Ieva Baklane

Agita Keiri
(Agita Keiri)

Agita Keiri’s artistic world is based on three whales: myth, history and fantasy. That’s why her works are so reminiscent of pictures from dreams – only the main characters in them are not mythical creatures, but ordinary people.

The human being in the works of the artist is both an actor, whose task is to do everything to make the viewer feel his acting, and an outside observer. “For me, the main thing is to show the connection between the human body and soul,” Agita says.The artist’s work has been exhibited in museums in the United States, Italy and England.

Agita Keir

Katrina Gaile
(Katrīna Gaile)

The utmost honesty and close attention are probably the words to describe Katrina Gaile’s work.

Social problems are a concern of artist so she puts them on canvas. Scenes from everyday life of ordinary and at the same time very special people. The scenes are unvarnished. The people depicted in Katrina’s works do not have names, but each has a personal story enclosed inside and bursting out. Katrina tries to read that story out loud.

Several times a year the artist’s work can be seen at individual and group exhibitions in various Latvian cities, from Riga to Gulbene.

Katrīna Gaile