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Elita Patmalniece – JOURNEY BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Name: Elita Patmalniece – JOURNEY BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Start: 2023-10-25T00:00:00+00:00
End: 2023-12-31T23:59:59+00:00

October 25, 2023 - December 31, 2023

From October 25th, 2023
at the premises of Art gallery PUTTI

Solo exhibition by Latvian contemporary artist

Elita Patmalniece

JOURNEY BETWEEN LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Exhibition on display until December 31st, 2023 at the premises of Art gallery PUTTI, Peitavas iela 5, Old Riga, entrance from Mārstaļu street.

Experience is continuous. Past, present, future – modern science has shown that our minds exist in all three time zones simultaneously. The past merges with the present, yet we also live in the future because we must be prepared for it. We must be able to predict and prepare for what may happen, even if at times it is the most unpredictable of things. Perhaps that’s why humanity has been blessed with such a wonderful instrument as art. It’s a visual language that connects the past, present, and future.

Through the artist – as a medium, it tells us what matters most. In the figurative language of signs, colors, shapes, and textures, art helps us see, touch the intangible, what is still only budding in the ethereal ocean of possibilities and ideas. Sometimes art can be brutally honest and straightforward, but it always offers hope, reminding us of the continuity of experience – in the constant dance of the universe between light and darkness. One is not possible without the other, and both are temporary; they constantly replace each other. Our only task is to learn to accept this, to be aware of the dance in which we are immersed and not lose ourselves in it.

In 2016, Elita Patmalniece held an exhibition at Art gallery Putti called “Levitation,” an integrative art project in which, with the participation of the viewers, a kind of contemporary mandala emerged – a flying woman of the 21st-century metropolis. Free, soaring above everyday life and the attributes of contemporary lifestyle, she transcended the world. Closer to herself and the circles of her consciousness and the events of her life, the existence of which she may not have even suspected at that time. The black and white drawing covered one of the walls of the Putti gallery, and any exhibition visitor could participate in its coloring by taking the colors and brushes placed nearby and letting their hand guide them. Impulsively, passionately, merging individual experiences with those yet to be experienced – here and now, with each individual energy becoming part of the process of creating art.

Elita’s dream was to transform this work into an embroidered painting, and its realization took seven years. In the autumn of 2023, the work, consisting of five separate fragments, was completed and is currently on display again at the Putti gallery – in the same place. Metaphorically and through the figurative language of signs, it reveals to us the world and the events that we have experienced in these years. Confronting crises, pandemic, and the alarms and transformations of war, each person facing their own, and the colors of our former world. Looking at the course of human history, there have not been many periods when we have felt somewhat secure. It’s a wonderful feeling, but very fleeting. In 2016, the levitating woman of Elita tried to tell us this. Did we manage to see/perceive/feel it? Most likely not because we treated the story of the woman as a splendid fairy tale in which the elements of anxiety were nothing more than night shadows.

Take a close look: in the chest of the flying woman, a heart throbs, a heart that has longed for love, specially marked by three arrows flying towards it. The heart is the solution to everything. The door to a world where harmony returns. Living in our minds, we have forgotten about the heart. Now we must be able to find and strengthen its rusty key. Step by step, just like coloring the mandala – towards a better self and a better world.

/Una Meistere, culture journalist, editor of the arts portal Arterritory/

Exhibition on display:

Mondays closed

Tuesdays closed

Wednesdays 11:00-17:00
Thursdays 11:00-17:00
Fridays 11:00-17:00
Saturdays 11:00-17:00
Sundays closed