SIVIA

Colours in Dialogue: 10th International Painting Plein Air “Valdis Bušs 2026”

For the tenth consecutive year, artists from different cultural backgrounds gather in Northern Latgale and Balvi Municipality for the International Painting Plein Air “Valdis Bušs 2026”, continuing a tradition that has become one of Latvia’s most distinctive annual painting events. Held in and around the town of Viļaka from 13 to 22 July, the plein air brings together six painters whose practices reflect diverse artistic languages while sharing a common commitment to contemporary painting.

This year’s participants are Elga Grīnvalde (Latvia), Cecilia Chiavistelli (Italy), Ashot Shahbazyan (Armenia), Claudia Toran (Spain), Chae Hyeon Lee (South Korea) and Filip Rzodkiewicz (Poland). Working within the landscapes of Northern Latgale, each artist develops new works inspired not only by the surrounding environment but also by the dialogue that naturally emerges through shared experience, observation and creative exchange.

Rather than following a predetermined theme, the plein air encourages artists to respond freely to place, atmosphere and personal encounters. The resulting paintings become individual reflections shaped by local light, colour and landscape, while collectively revealing the richness of contemporary painting across different cultural perspectives.

The project pays tribute to Valdis Bušs (1924–2014), one of Latvia’s most important colourists and landscape painters. Deeply connected to Latgale throughout his life, Bušs transformed familiar landscapes into emotionally charged compositions where colour itself became the principal means of expression. His artistic legacy continues to inspire new generations of painters, making the plein air not only a meeting of contemporary artists but also an ongoing conversation with one of Latvia’s most distinctive artistic voices.

The works created during the symposium will be presented in the final exhibition opening on 22 July at Balvi Manor, where the exhibition will remain on view until 20 October 2026, offering visitors an opportunity to experience six unique interpretations of Northern Latgale through contemporary painting.

The project is organised by Balvi Municipality in cooperation with the Rothko Museum and is produced by SIVIA and Saules Stari Viļakai.

The project is funded by Balvi Municipality, the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, and the Latgale Historical Lands Development Programme.

Māris Čačka. Between Consciousness and Perception at Liepāja Museum

On 10 July 2026, the Liepāja Museum opened Māris Čačka’s solo exhibition Between Consciousness and Perception, presenting a new body of paintings together with a monumental mural created specifically for the museum space. The exhibition continues the artist’s exploration of abstraction as a visual language that invites personal experience rather than fixed interpretation.

Čačka approaches painting not as an image to be deciphered but as an encounter between the artwork and the viewer. The exhibition focuses on the moment between first impression and conscious interpretation. Transparent layers of colour, linear structures and surface textures create compositions that avoid definitive answers and encourage careful observation.

A central element of the exhibition is the large-scale mural LM, conceived especially for the architecture of the Liepāja Museum. Existing only for the duration of the exhibition, the work emphasizes the uniqueness of both place and time. Extending beyond the boundaries of the canvas, the mural integrates with the gallery space and becomes an essential part of the visitor’s experience.

In his artistic practice, Māris Čačka has developed a layered painterly language in which transparency, successive applications of colour, rhythm and texture play a defining role. Each work evolves through a gradual process of building, revealing and partially concealing previous layers, allowing the history of its making to remain visible. Rather than depicting reality, the artist is interested in the process of perception itself—the moment when what is seen becomes a personal experience.

_{Supported by The Latvian authors’ society AKKA/LAA and Caparol}

Parting the Clouds: Māris Čačka’s First Solo Exhibition in London

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.

Māris Čačka. Blooming at the GORS

On 12 May at 3.00 PM, the Art Gallery of Latgales vēstniecība GORS will host a meeting with Māris Čačka and the opening of his solo exhibition Blooming.

The exhibition approaches blooming not as a visual motif, but as an existential state. At Latgales vēstniecība GORS, the exhibition will be on view from 12 May until 12 July.

“Blooming is not about flowers. It is about the moment when everything accumulated unfolds and becomes presence,” says Māris Čačka. The exhibition Blooming reflects a stage in life when accumulated experience takes on visible form — not as a culmination, but as a quality of presence matured through time.

Māris Čačka is a Latvian artist who has developed a unique hybrid method of abstract expression, combining painting and graphic art. His artistic language is characterised by a free yet controlled use of colour, where gestural expression merges with structured composition. He has participated in exhibitions since 1997 and, since 2001, has regularly organised solo exhibitions and taken part in group exhibitions, symposia, plein-air workshops, and other art events in Latvia and internationally.

The Art Gallery of Latgales vēstniecība GORS is open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 12.00 PM to 9.00 PM.

Māris Čačka. Direct Dialogues in Chișinău

On 8 April 2026, the National Museum of Art of Moldova opened Direct Dialogues, a solo exhibition by Latvian artist Māris Čačka, organised in partnership with the Embassy of Latvia in Chișinău.

The exhibition presents recent large-scale works where painting and graphic elements merge into a layered abstract language. Čačka’s practice explores dialogue not as words, but as a field of tension between thought, emotion, presence, and silence.

Through a process of applying, removing, and reworking paint, the artist builds surfaces that resemble ongoing conversations. Layers overlap, interrupt, and respond to one another, creating compositions that remain open and unresolved.

These works function as visual journals of encounters and reflections, inviting the viewer to enter the space of dialogue and continue it from their own perspective.

The exhibition is on view from 8 April to 17 May 2026 in Chișinău.

Māris Čačka. Satellites Exhibition Opened in Šiauliai

On 20 March 2026, the solo exhibition Satellites by Latvian artist Māris Čačka opened at Šiauliai Art Gallery.

The exhibition brought together a new body of paintings exploring the idea of personal “orbits” shaped by people, memories, and encounters. Through layered colour fields, pulsating lines, and graphic elements, Čačka reflects on presence and absence, connection and distance.

The works unfold as visual signals, tracing emotional imprints left by those who move through our lives. Some remain close, others fade, yet continue to resonate as quiet points of light.

Satellites extended Čačka’s ongoing exploration of dialogue, here shifting towards a more introspective and poetic reflection on human connection across time and space.

The exhibition on view until 11 April 2026.

14th Latgale Graphic Art Symposium Exhibition Opened at the Rothko Museum

On 7 March 2026, the 14th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium at the Rothko Museum concluded with the opening of a group exhibition presenting works created during a two-week residency.

Nine artists from Italy, Canada, Poland, Ukraine, India, Lithuania, and Latvia developed new printmaking works through an intensive process of exchange, experimentation, and collaboration. The exhibition reflects a wide range of approaches, from traditional techniques to contemporary interpretations of the graphic medium.

Curated by Tatjana Černova, the exhibition captures the energy of the symposium and the dialogue that emerged between artists, practices, and cultural contexts.

The project was conceived and produced by SIVIA Association in the framework of the Rothko Museum’s residency programme, with support from the Daugavpils City Council and the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia.

The exhibition remains on view until 10 May 2026.
Photos: Santa Suhanova

Māris Čačka’s Satellites at Valmiera Museum

On 12 December 2025, the solo exhibition Satellites by Latvian artist Māris Čačka opened at the Valmiera Museum Exhibition Hall, where it will be on view until 11 February 2026.

The exhibition marks a concentrated and conceptually precise stage in the artist’s practice. Rather than unfolding as a linear narrative, Satellites is constructed as an orbital system in which painterly and graphic works interact like celestial bodies, shaped by attraction, distance, and shifting trajectories. The exhibition proposes not a story but a spatial model of thinking.

The notion of the satellite operates on several levels. It refers to people, experiences, and encounters that have entered the artist’s gravitational field at different moments in life and continue to resonate over time. These presences are not depicted directly. Instead, they are translated into fields of colour, rhythm, and texture that register traces rather than events themselves. Memory here is not narrated but sensed.

A key structural element of the exhibition is the dialogue between large-scale paintings and small-format works. The monumental canvases establish stable orbits within the exhibition space. Their scale creates a strong physical and emotional presence, forming the gravitational core of the exhibition.

In contrast, the small-format works function differently. They act as meteorites rather than satellites. These works represent people from Valmiera who have been significant in the artist’s life at specific moments. Their presence is concentrated rather than expansive, embodying brief yet decisive encounters that altered trajectories. The reduced format intensifies their meaning, compressing experience into dense visual energy.

Within this system, Valmiera becomes more than the exhibition’s location. It emerges as an active gravitational field where personal memory intersects with shared space. The architectural arrangement of the exhibition reinforces this logic, encouraging the viewer to navigate rather than progress, to circle, return, and recalibrate their position within the visual system.

Through restraint and quiet intensity, Satellites reflects on attachment, release, and relational gravity. It is an exhibition about those who remain visible or invisible companions in our lives, continuing to circulate within memory as subdued yet enduring sources of light.

Photographs by Klavs Vasilevskis

OPEN CALL for 14th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium

The Rothko Museum in collaboration with the Gallery SIVIA, invites applications for the 14th International Latgale Graphic Art Symposium, taking place from 23 February to 8 March 2026 in Daugavpils, Latvia.

This prestigious symposium serves as a dynamic platform for artistic exchange, bringing together leading graphic artists from around the world. Over the years, it has hosted more than 100 participants from nearly 40 countries, significantly contributing to the development of the graphic medium in the Latgale Region.

When: 23 February – 8 March 2026
Where: Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia
Who Can Apply: 10 professional artists will be selected through a competition based on submitted application materials (application form, CV, and portfolio).

Be part of this esteemed international event celebrating innovation and excellence in printmaking.

APPLY NOW

Māris Čačka’s artworks presented at the exhibition Basil Alkazzi: Artist and Philanthropist in Gdańsk

The exhibition is dedicated to Basil Alkazzi (1938–2025) and serves as a tribute to his generosity and lifelong dedication to art, recognizing his role as a true friend and patron of the National Museum in Gdańsk.
For ten years, Alkazzi supported the museum by donating his own artworks, works by international artists, and by funding the acquisition of pieces by emerging Polish painters.

The exhibition presents 26 works by Basil Alkazzi, gifted to the museum. They include abstract oil paintings from the 1980s and 1990s, as well as pieces created after 2000. Many of them, painted on handmade paper, are intended for intimate and contemplative viewing. Recurrent motifs in Alkazzi’s work include triangles, pathways, seascapes, flowers, and elements of nature.

Alongside Alkazzi’s own works, the exhibition also features donated artworks by artists he admired or supported throughout his life, organizing exhibitions for them or granting awards in his name. The collection includes 134 works by artists from the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Latvia.

Among these are works by internationally recognized names such as John Hedgecoe, David Hockney, Joe Tilson, Paul Huxley, and Keith Vaughan, as well as younger-generation artists.
The Latvian artist Māris Čačka is also represented in this collection. His paintings LA (Lady in Orange) and EM (Evening Meeting) were exhibited alongside these renowned creators, forming part of this important international exhibition.

The donated works reflect Alkazzi’s artistic sensibility and values, a deep and mindful approach to the world, refined craftsmanship, and a sensitivity to form and expression.

The exhibition is open at the Pałac Opatów, National Museum in Gdańsk, from 25 October 2025 to 1 March 2026.