When 3812 Gallery opened Parting the Clouds on 26 June 2026, the exhibition introduced more than a new body of paintings. It brought together an artist whose practice has developed steadily beyond the Baltic region with a curatorial concept that approaches abstraction not as a style, but as a way of thinking about perception. On view until 9 August 2026, the exhibition marks Latvian artist Māris Čačka’s first solo presentation in the United Kingdom and the latest chapter in his collaboration with the London gallery.
Curated by Calvin Hui, Parting the Clouds takes its title from a fleeting moment of revelation—a brief opening through which familiar surroundings are seen differently. Rather than offering a fixed interpretation of the paintings, Hui proposes a framework in which uncertainty becomes productive. Clarity appears only momentarily before dissolving again, asking viewers to remain attentive to what cannot be fully resolved.
This curatorial perspective finds a natural counterpart in Čačka’s recent paintings. Their layered surfaces, restrained colour relationships and gestural structures resist immediate reading. They unfold gradually, rewarding sustained observation rather than quick recognition. What initially appears spontaneous is, in fact, the result of careful accumulation, where every trace remains visible as part of the painting’s own memory.
In an earlier conversation published by 3812 Gallery, Čačka reflected that many of his works begin not with an image, but with emotions that are difficult to express verbally. Instead of translating those experiences into recognisable forms, he allows them to remain open, giving colour, rhythm and gesture the capacity to communicate what language often cannot. This refusal to prescribe meaning gives the paintings their quiet intensity and leaves space for individual experience.
Although firmly rooted in abstraction, the works are never detached from lived reality. Their visual language grows from observation rather than invention—from encounters, conversations, fragments of memory and the subtle shifts that shape everyday perception. The paintings do not illustrate these experiences; they preserve their atmosphere. As a result, each work exists somewhere between presence and absence, between what is revealed and what remains beyond reach.
The exhibition also reflects the increasing international scope of Čačka’s artistic practice. During recent years his work has been presented in museums, galleries and biennials across Europe and Asia, bringing Latvian contemporary painting into a broader international dialogue. Rather than representing a departure, the London exhibition extends this trajectory, placing his work within a context where different cultural perspectives meet through contemporary abstraction.
The opening evening gathered collectors, curators, artists and members of London’s international art community. Conversations moved naturally between the paintings, confirming that the exhibition does not depend upon explanation. Instead, meaning develops through looking, through time spent in front of a painting and through the different readings each visitor brings to it.
The photographs accompanying this publication document more than an exhibition opening. They record the moment when paintings leave the privacy of the studio and enter a shared public space, where interpretation is no longer shaped solely by the artist or curator, but also by the people who encounter the work.
Parting the Clouds does not seek definitive conclusions. It proposes something quieter: an opportunity to slow down, to look without expectation and to accept that perception itself is always incomplete. In doing so, the exhibition demonstrates the continuing development of Māris Čačka’s painting while reaffirming abstraction as a language capable of expressing experiences that lie beyond direct description.
SIVIA 