Māris Čačka’s solo exhibition, “Acceptance,” is on display at the Ventspils Museum, The Castle of the Livonian Order, from July 6th to September 15th, 2024.
An artist’s skin
They say self-acceptance means feeling good in one’s skin. For an artist, their skin is their canvas or paper, extremely thin and vulnerable to harm. Perhaps this is the reason it is so assiduously painted, as if for camouflage.
In his reflective commentary on the exhibition title, Čačka says: “Acceptance ties to the persistent habit of self-questioning and doubt. Your mind keeps asking if you’re ever good enough and perfectly accepted when and where you want. It seeks to know how consequential it is for you to be accepted and how other people feel about acceptance in their lives. All these reflections are forever jostling in your head… Beyond that are other forms of acceptance, such as feasting and celebrating life. Being able to make it happen for yourself and others. Acceptance as being accepted by and accepting of others… Those are my functional keywords.”
“Acceptance” by Māris Čačka comes to the Ventspils Museum’s Livonian Order Castle in mid-summer and midway through the exhibition season at the castle’s gallery space, where the latest solo project was “Heading towards the Unknown” by Kaspars Zariņš and where the current cycle will conclude with paintings by Aija Zariņa. But now, “Acceptance” shines on all three castle floors with brand-new artworks and a series of prints the artist made expressly for this venue.
Čačka’s visual vocabulary is consistently abstract. Jubilant acrylic splashing across a darker canvas background and offsetting playful experiments with the material in prints on mirror surfaces. The artist’s inner child playing in peaceful contentment. The multi-coloured fireworks, however, hold a secret, the clues for which the artist leaves in cryptic titles. I like to think they are abbreviations. That MMA stands for My Mother Aina and TM for Tuesday’s Mayhem. I’m only joking, but it’s wonderful that Čačka’s artworks have their secrets, and I will let them stay that way. Because what can be more exciting than to keep scanning colour fields and be delighted by a flash of an elusive tiger or some other fleeting shape. The artist’s enigmatic concept is so charming, a private secret that resists disclosure.
“Reflections” (40×40, 2024), a standalone series shown on the third gallery floor, echoes the theme of the sweeping “RR” made in acrylic on canvas (190×190, 2024) – a black rain starting on the canvas and continuing in congreve print. Perhaps it represents the sorrows of the world continuously raining on the artist’s skin in tiny rivulets that leave distinctly lighter, washed-out trails in the emergent piece. This figurative rain is yet another version of acceptance, where every feeling and experience will have its place.
Although the artist is an active public figure and holds a key administrative post as the Rothko Museum’s director, his creativity flows with abundance. Čačka’s extensive exhibition record dates back to 2001. Since then, it has swelled to 34 solo exhibitions, of which 19 were held domestically while 13 spanned international venues in Lithuania, Germany, Poland, China and Belarus. Čačka is an eager and regular contributor to plein airs and artist residencies, not least at the Ventspils Museum. The latest highlights of his curatorial and organisational record are the Valdis Bušs International Painting Plein Air (creative producer since 2017), the International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium (curator since 2012) and the Silva Linarte International Painting Symposium (curator in 2019 and 2020).
Ieva Rupenheite, exhibition curator
SIVIA 