MAKSLA XO Gallery presents
at POSITIONS BERLIN 2019

Stand - A25

https://positions.de/start.html

This year at POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair 2019 "Maksla XO" gallery is going to present the works of three Latvian contemporary artists – the graphic artist Paulis Liepa, the painter Ieva Iltnere and the stage-designer Anna Heinrihsone.

Anna Heinrihsone (1970, Latvia) is one of the most renowned contemporary costume and stage designers in Latvia with international experience. She has developed projects in Estonia as well as Russia, working with such significant Latvian directors as Indra Roga, Viesturs Meiksans, Aivars Leimanis, Rezija Kalnina, and Russian directors Genady Ostrovsky and Alexander Kalyagin et al.
As an well-known and popular stage and costume designer with her own unique style, where one of its features is vivid characters, who unfold in mutual relations and actions, Anna Heinrihsone has establish her name, working in Latvia – at the New Riga Theatre, the Valmiera Drama Theatre, the Latvian National Opera and Ballet, as well as in Estonia – the Tartu Vannemuine Theatre, and Russia – MHAT (Moscow Art Theatre), the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. Nominated eight times, in 2000 and 2012, she has won the Latvia's annual theatre award “Players' Night” for “Best costume designer”.
Anna Heinrihsone has also created important exhibition designs at the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Riga Film Museum, Zanis Lipke Memorial et. al.; currently her exhibition design is on view at the Liepaja museum for the exhibition of the famous Russian fashion historian and collector Alexander Vasilyev – “Alexander Vasiliev costume collection. II War Time”
In parallel to stage, costume design and exhibition design, Anna Heinrihsone also works in visual art – painting and drawing, regularly organizing solo shows and participating in group exhibitions. Similarly to her stage designs, bright and original characters are also distinctive in her paintings. Anna Heinrihsone’s works create an absolutely solitary world of images, in which every new work can be perceptible as a sequel of the last. In her paintings, the artist has directness typical to the drawing of children, and it leads us into ironical, stinging and tragicomic world of images.

The works exhibited at the POSTIONS BERLIN 2019 are from Anna Heinrihsone’s solo show “August” at “Maksla XO” (September 2015, Riga, Latvia):
“The story unfolds around past family events in the heat of August.
They, who are now already dead, prepare to enjoy their life there...
And the faces oppositely have preserved all of it in their wrinkles, between life and death, hanging in the memories of August, a long way back” - Anna Heinrihsone, 2015.

Ieva Iltnere’s (1957, Latvia) art could be described as gently defiant. She has succeeded to retain her unique and recognisable style while transforming and experimenting at the same time.
Since 2007 Ieva Iltnere’s paintings achieve their inimitable power by making supertemporal aestheticism, ornamentality and, to call things by their proper names, beauty to mix with documentation of the era, irony and even social commentary. The paintings are unique with their paradoxality – not quite intellectual (in the sense that attempts of conceptualising, making us misunderstand the work) and yet vaguely stimulating the mind, never allowing to trust one’s senses completely (something will also probably be missed by a naively enthusiastic viewer). Feelings and sensibility are present, yet susceptible to displacement. Everything is perfect, yet nothing is in its proper place.
She analyses the nowadays people’s obsession with material world’s objects’ collecting, archiving and exhibiting. This obsession to collect artworks and art books, haute couture collections, vinyl records, old photos or souvenirs also is a story about modern consumer society wish to build increasingly impressive cultural layer of objects around themselves to exhibit them later into museums and private collections. It is individual’s obsession which retain cultural achievements in different fields.

The works shown in POSITIONS BERLINS 2019 are a continuation of the painter’s solo show “Sum” at “Maksla XO” (July 2018):
“The works are about addends – the image is put together from pieces, which are today’s fragmented perception – both informative and visual. In the creating process, I turned aside to layers, and TIME became the main theme. It is like in life – we put layer over layer, and then time peels off some parts and uncovers the previous ones. Accidentally found embroideries are also time. I painted from the left side, and by chance came to a certain kind of pointillism” - Ieva Iltnere, 2018.

Paulis Liepa (1978, Latvia) – currently one of the best known Latvian graphic artists with his own bright and recognizable style. Using seemingly neutral and unpretentious units, the artist reflects on philosophical and current events in a wide range, starting from recent war collision points to simple everyday items and topics, which generally is a diary by the artist as a modern human: studio, home, street, Internet, news, advertisement…
The aesthetics of Paulis Liepa’s works have evolved from various influences of the modernist graphic culture of the 20th century, design, architecture and engineering blueprints, especially looking back at the visual aesthetics of the 60’s and 70’s, which the artist uses as his language of expression. In the creation process of artworks, the artist uses the most basic graphic techniques – collography and cardboard cut.

The latest works, shown at POSITIONS BERLIN 2019, are from the artist’s solo show “Splitting” at “Maksla XO” gallery (July 2019, Riga, Latvia):
“In this case “splitting” is used as a description. Instead of the usual “share”, one more turnaround in the order of common things – splitting into teams, the polarization, the incompatibility of views, drawing the lines and marking the territory. Splitting the room in half and searching for the vanishing point” - Paulis Liepa.

Support:           LIAA