Luīze Rukšāne's solo exhibition “Clodded Landscapes”

Luīze Rukšāne's solo exhibition “Clodded Landscapes” is on view at the Intro Hall of “Riga Art Space” from 1 September. Exhibition will be open to visitors until 16 October.

Legs wobble as you stumble through the tilled and sun-warmed field covered in clods of earth. It’s impossible to balance your feet on the furrow or in-between. In the August sun, the eyes cannot distinguish the hard clods of earth from stones, and the sun's rays pile up with the straw. A horse (or cow) lies calm and still as a stone in the middle of a field. The distance to the animal seems great and the thought of approaching it immediately seems to push it even further away. Just as it can be impossible to decipher the meaning of a particular memory or feeling. In doing so, the thing in question can be constantly changing or lost.

The exhibition features 24 drawings by Luīze Rukšāne, created over several years by redrawing a digital photograph taken long-ago. With each drawing, the memory and feeling of the place, the moment and the horse in the drawing are reinforced, but it has also become something abstract, which, instead of a specific moment, describes the artist's interest in the human relationship with time and space - how place affects our sense of self and why often insignificant moments stick in the memory for years. Drawing has become a method of looking and thinking for the artist and an attempt to capture something ephemeral and eternally fragile and incomprehensibly significant.

Luīze Rukšāne (1995) is a young artist who graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor's degree in Humanities from the Art Academy of Latvia in Audiovisual and Media Arts, studied at the Faculty of Architecture of Riga Technical University and furthered her studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, as well as at the beekeeping course of the Latvian University of Agriculture. In 2015 she graduated from the Janis Rozentāls Riga Art Secondary School, specializing in painting. She has been creating and participating in exhibitions since 2017. Works in various visual art media, organizes exhibitions of her contemporaries. Two exhibitions are currently in the works, scheduled to open in autumn 2022. In her creative practice, Luīze expresses her love for the human. The drawing technique reflects the themes of growing up, development and memories.

Curated by Renāte Lagzdiņa.

The exhibition is organized by the Association of Culture Institutions of Riga City Council and the exhibition hall “Riga Art Space” with the support of the Riga City Council and the State Culture Capital Foundation and Kokmuiža. Special thanks to Krišs Karnītis.