Sandra Strele

Sandra Strele (1991)

In her artistic practice, Sandra Strēle explores expanded forms of painting, creating large-scale series in which narratives, motifs, and figures develop and transform, forming continuous storylines. These may be universally resonant, rooted in everyday experience, or deeply intimate and personal to the artist. Figures migrate from one painting to another, generating new interpretations and layers of meaning.
Sandra Strēle’s distinctive imagery and her refined paint-dripping technique allow the monumental canvases to be experienced with a sense of playfulness and lightness – even as they balance on narrow, elongated footbridges suspended above mysterious depths of water. (Ilze Zeivate, 2026.)

Sandra Strēle graduated from the Painting Department of the Art Academy of Latvia (2010–2016) and furthered her studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (2014). She has received grants for supporting emerging artists from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2025, 2021, 2019, Montreal, Canada), the Baltic regional Young Painter Prize (2019, YPP), the SEB Scholarship in Painting (2016, Riga, Latvia), and a scholarship in the arts from the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation (2012, Riga, Latvia). Most significant recent exhibitions: 2025 – “The Night Before”, Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia; 2023 – “Exhibitions that never happened: Thickets”, Riga Contemporary Art Space, Riga, Latvia.
Her works are held in public collections: the Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga, Latvia), the Lithuanian National Gallery of Art (Vilnius, Lithuania), and the Noewe Foundation (Vilnius, Lithuania).