The exhibition “Paintings” is dedicated to the medium of painting on porcelain and invites visitors to observe the nuanced and original ways in which currently active artists are able to express themselves in this medium. The works enable viewers to appreciate and delve deeper into the aesthetic qualities of the overglaze and underglaze paintings, as well as the great scope of the creators’ artistic expression.

Floating watercolours or crisp graphic lines, glazing strokes of colour that glide delicately over each other, or directly applied brazen areas of pure colour. Plot-based narratives that encode subjective stories or sensuously captured painterly moods. References to the cultures of civilisations and their histories, or a direct observation of the reality right around us.

The exhibition features works by Dace Blūma, Inese Brants, Helēna Heinrihsone, Ivars Heinrihsons, Ritums Ivanovs, Tatjana Krivenkova, Marta Prēdele, Megija Zonne and Žanete Žvīgure. The exhibition has been deliberately designed so that artists whose everyday lives are spent in different environments and whose creative practice encompasses different aesthetic codes, both industry-specific and generation-specific, can stand together, in the same place and at the same time.

Decorative plates, vases, serving vessels and other objects were created in different periods: in the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s. Several of the works featured in this exhibition shall be presented to the public for the very first time. The aim of this selection is to showcase the presence and continuity of tradition; the fact that porcelain painting has remained on the creative and professional agenda of various artists for many years and continues to be a source of creative challenge and refreshment to this day.

Inese Brants, Žanete Žvīgure and Dace Blūma are professional ceramists who work with porcelain. They are able to create the form and the painting, but this time the exhibition emphasises the second aspect of their skills: the mastery of the filigree porcelain painting technique, which has been refined over decades and allows the artists to execute any idea on porcelain, with virtuosity.

The painters Helēna Heinrihsone, Ivars Heinrihsons, Tatjana Krivenkova and Ritums Ivanovs have canvas and oil at their disposal, sometimes also paper and screen printing, lithography, watercolour, on occasion even steel and glass. And over the years, glazed porcelain surfaces have also found their place. The distinctive painting techniques, styles and image systems which have been honed over the years and have now been consolidated into iconographic constellations of meaning are likewise brought to life in porcelain. The result is generous and allows for a broadening of the experience of conventional art reading.

It is a particular pleasure to present the younger generation of artists, Marta Prēdele and Megija Zonne, whose professional lives are still at the very beginning. It is remarkable that, of all the possibilities that the realm of ceramics offers, the artists have specifically chosen porcelain and porcelain painting. Although their future work may develop in many different directions, it is worth noting at this point that the baton of tradition has been picked up and the legacy is being carried on.

The Latvia International Ceramics Biennale is one of the most important contemporary ceramics events in the Baltic region, organised by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics in collaboration with the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre. The Riga Porcelain Museum’s exhibition “Paintings” is held alongside the Biennale’s 2023 exhibition programme at the Riga Art Space.

In the photo: Decorative plate from the cycle “Impressions”. Author Žanete Žvīgure. 2020. Photo by Gvido Kajons.