Tatjana Krivenkova

Tatjana Krivenkova (1964)

Among Latvian contemporary artists Tatjana Krivenkova is a well-known painter with refined and exquisite sense of colour, a language of painting, that she has developed herself. In the recent years she has found a way to represent the purest expressions of abstraction, formally solving the relationship between colour and light in countless variations and interactions between the shades of transparent and glazing colours that overlap or blend into one another. Tatjana Krivenkova paints various light reflections – play of light on different surfaces, light divagation from darkness and pollution of light. She is interested in the geological structure of the earth and crystals, black holes and gravity, stars and Northern Lights, magnetism and energy, light and dark.
The large-scale glazed and matted canvases are almost monochromatic, with only tiny brush strokes creating fine nuances in tone. She attempts to paint an endless space, which has nothing to do with the flat surface of a painting and is something more than tones and forms for some decorative purposes.
On a mental level she discusses relationship between mind and soul, where the vibrant brush strokes represent matter, and light channels the spiritual level. The title of every Tatjana Krivenkova’s exhibition is like a challenge - Acuity, Whitsunday, The Light diverges from the Darkness, Pollution of Light, Descartes’ Mildness, -weakly-, A Dedication to Famous Painters, Weeding - her painting provides much more to the viewer than it seems at the first glance.
Painting aside, Tatjana Krivenkova has always been interested in drawing and porcelain painting, and, in the recent years, aquatint and lithography as well. (Ilze Zeivate, Maksla XO Gallery)

“I wanted to paint in such a way that the viewer does not sense matter, so as not to sense the painting itself, so that there would be a window, an illusion” – Tatjana Krivenkova.

By turning to graphics too, especially colour aquatints, Tatjana Krivenkova has set herself a challenge. She does not print the large runs characteristic of graphic art. Every one of her colour aquatints is made from two or three plates and each is like a unique work. The basic module of all the compositions is a square divided into nine smaller squares. With every print the artist changes the composition and colour arrangement so unnoticeably and cleverly that we get the justified feeling that we are in the presence of art. The tonally nuanced and refined two colour interrelationships are arranged in countless variations and unexpected patterns. However, in no way is it possible to transform these two colour relationships into precise RGB or CMYK colour code percentages. This is why the true value of Krivenkova’s aquatints can only be appreciated by examining the original works and why exhibitions of Tatjana Krivenkova’s works are celebrations for the many admirers of her talent. (Guntars Sietiņš)

Tatjana Krivenkova has graduated from the Department of Monumental Painting of the Art Academy of Latvia (1988) and obtained a Master’s degree from the Department of Graphic Art of the Art Academy of Latvia (2010); she has studied porcelain painting at the Lomonosov Imperial Porcelain Factory in St. Petersburg (1995-1996). In parallel to painting, Tatjana Krivenkova is active in porcelain painting, works a lot with the drawing, and in recent years has turn to graphic techniques. For the solo show “Pollution of Light” at Maksla XO gallery (10.03.-05.04.2011), Tatjana Krivenkova was nominated for the Purvitis Prize 2013.
Tatjana Krivenkova’s works are in public collections – Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga / Latvia), Museum of Decorative and Design Art (Riga / Latvia), Riga Porcelan Museum (Riga / Latvia), Latvian Artist's Union Collection (Riga / Latvia), Talsi Regional Museum (Talsi / Latvija),Pedvale Open Air Museum (Pedvale / Latvia).