Normunds Braslins (1962)

Normunds Braslins was born in Riga on 3 March 1962. He received his professional education at the Janis Rozentāls Riga Secondary School of Art ( 1973-1980 ) and the Department of Painting of the Latvian Academy of Art ( 1980-1986 ). He has obtained the degree of Master in Art ( 1996 ).
Has exhibited his work since 1980.
He is a member of the Artists' Union of Latvia since 1987. Since 1988, he works at the Latvian Academy of Art, currently an associate professor, one of the teaching staff of the Master Class in Figural Art. He consistently maintains the traditions of figural painting. He has taken part in many exhibitions, but has avoided holding a solo exhibition. The first solo exhibition "Normunds Braslins. Drawings" was take place at the Latvian National Museum of Art in 2008.

Normunds Braslin's drawings - it truly intrigues me how this fine line, existing on the plane of the paper, can create such a marked impression of volume, a characteristic that, on the one hand is obscured, and on the other hand accentuated, by the many washes of Indian ink, reminiscent of accrued traces of damage on an old sheet of paper...

                                                                                                                                               Irēna Bužinska. 2008

" In my development, I've traced a very wide circle. In my student years, I began with the Dutch - with Willem Claeszoon Heda - followed by the 14th - 15th century Italian and Northern Renaissance masters... Immediately after my studies at the Academy, I even went as far as abstract art. And then I gradually returned to my realism, and I' ve never been particularly concerned with fashion trends in art.

" I'm interested in Antonello da Messina, Paolo Uccello, Andrea Mantegna, Jacopo Pontormo, Lucas Cranach and others. I am influenced by the compositional clarity of the Renaissance artists, and I study the approach to particular, specific formal problems in their work, which helps resolve significant questions that I encounter. But all of this relates to painting, since drawing is a different matter altogether. "

" I've reached the conclusion that the drawing process is much more attractive: the nand can follow the mind, and in the course of drawing, the idea can be visualised immediately. Apart from this, drawing is easier not in terms of the process, but in terms of perception, since you can penetrate deeper into a drawing, introducing more ambiquity and achieving linear, tonal and abstract elements."

" I'm creating an image of my own. In order to produce this in painting, you need about 100 different details. But when drawing, the hand picks up even the most minute thought processes, changes and movements. When you're drawing, you first see what you wish for in your mind's eye and then put it on paper. In painting, it's physically impossible to follow though an idea with such precision.''

                                                                                                                                  Normunds Brasliņš. 2008