Māris Čačka’s latest solo show IN REFLECTION is an abstract visualisation of the author’s subjective fleeting experiences and his individual take on the things that happen around him. As such, it reveals to the viewer the artist’s personal history, or his reflections about public and domestic life, about successes and failures, portrayed as personal gains and losses. On the level of sensations, these can be interpreted as self-portraits of the artist’s emotions.
“It is not exactly my self-portrayal today, in present continuous. I’d rather call it a form of storytelling about the present. About how I see the past and how I draft my possible future scenario in terms of what I want to achieve and resolve and how I want to go about it. This transformation of emotions is constantly shifting and moving, and then my experience of the moment, this particular state that I enter when I’m creating, is enhanced with colour. This is how I arrive at these relative shapes where I stop the flow only to set it free again, letting the paint run, mix and change… In quite a few works I’ve painted over the initial picture. But beneath these later additions they retain the original ‘emotional layer’ – all the things I experienced, lived and selected as subjects to be spoken of.” – Māris Čačka
The new series, IN REFLECTION (2020), was developed specifically for the artist’s solo show in the exhibition space of the public library in Šiauliai or, as the artist puts it, for its spiritual domain. This time, he narrows down the theme of conversation, dialogue and portrayal of significant or casual acquaintances, which occupied him in the past and was so widely reflected in his previous works, to an inner monologue made public through abstract self-portraiture. These new works on canvas, created by mixing letterpress and painting techniques, reveal a cultivated and individual artistic style where the author deliberately mixes the two media and invites the viewer to ‘reflect’ on the process of creation.
Māris Čačka (1976) is a Latvian artist and art educator, director of Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, founder of the Art Teachers Association (1998) and SIVIA Gallery (2019), member of the Latvian Artists Union (2010) and the Latvian Chamber of Graphic Art (2011). His exhibition record, dating from 1997, extends to participation in 85 shows, including 22 solo shows in Latvia and abroad in countries such as Lithuania, Germany, Poland and Belarus. Between 2004 and 2020, Čačka has curated more than 70 international art projects and symposia. His works are held in museums and private collections in Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, the United Kingdom and Norway. Čačka’s latest major solo exhibition, “Dialogues. Parallels. Dimensions” (2019) was shown in Madona Museum (Latvia) and at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Belarus.
The exhibition is organised by the Povilas Višinskis Šiauliai County Public Library. The project was supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, SIVIA Gallery and INSPAIRUM.
Tatjana Černova
SIVIA 