Andris Eglītis' Solo Exhibition
01.06.2025 – 30.06.2025
Spirits & Wine, Andrejostas Street 5, Riga
From June 1 to June 30, at the premises of Spirits & Wine in Andrejsala, the solo exhibition "breaking dawn. Still Under the Sky" by artist Andris Eglītis will be on view. The exhibition is part of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art's (LLMC) 25th anniversary program, symbolically returning to the venue where 17 years ago A. Eglītis held his first major exhibition "Under the Sky."
Opening hours:
Monday–Saturday 10:00–22:00
Sunday 10:00–18:00
Admission – free of charge.
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“En plein air painting can be ranked among the many anachronisms in contemporary art. In its literal sense, plein air means ‘in the open air,’ that is, painting outdoors, as artists did in the middle of the 19th century, in order to depict selected motifs in natural light and in their direct presence” – this is what the Swedish curator Maria Lind writes about Andris Eglītis’s first solo exhibition.
Eglītis’s seemingly anachronistic approach occupies a special place in the Latvian art landscape. He consistently continues to work outdoors: painting landscapes in both rural and urban environments, collaborating with the forces of nature, creating the environment for the project SAVVAĻA (“SAVAGE”), as well as painting portraits of models over multi-hour sessions and creating large-scale figurative compositions for which his friends take on the roles of models and extras.
Eglītis describes his obsession with painting as stemming from a need for a “measured balance of the mind and being” and speaks with almost religious intensity about the necessity to “create moments of enlightenment in everyday details.”
The aforementioned solo exhibition, Under the Sky, was held in 2008 in the LCCA former exhibition hall, Andrejsala Korpusa cehs. His large-scale paintings, propped up against the construction racks, glowed in the dark, echoing the robust nature of the space and demonstrating an unusual way of displaying works for the time. Now, returning to the same space after seventeen years, Eglītis continues what he started - painting from nature.
Many of the works shown in the exhibition were created while Eglītis was in a short-term studio this past winter, during which the artist painted the sky every morning from the balcony on the top floor of the Philosophers’ Residence, capturing an unusual view of the city while being closer to the sky.
Eglītis’s skies are like notes on the margins of the day – or like diary entries or meditations. His repetition of monotonous observation is reminiscent of the unvarying rituals of Buddhist pilgrims as they slowly move around the sacred Mount Kailash. The artist emphasizes that “observation is an active action,” and that the world begins to exist in our consciousness only when we see it, despite our insignificance in front of the majesty of nature.
The title of the exhibition, breaking dawn. Still Under the Sky, echoes the previous exhibition and seems to mark the end of a time period. The same ever-changing skies, with their sunrises and sunsets, mist, storm clouds, stars and sparkling light, continue to exist alongside the upheavals of the world – its geopolitical conflicts, ecological disasters, and pandemic-induced apocalyptic forebodings.
We return to the same room from seventeen years ago. But today, as a result of gentrification processes, art has been replaced by another function. Dreams and ideas about a contemporary art museum and cultural space in Andrejsala have been transformed. But the sky never disappoints. It can be painted endlessly - even if the answers to many questions remain unanswered.
Andris Eglītis was born in 1981 and lives and works in Riga and the SAVVAĻA open-air art space. Since 2008, he has held more than 20 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 30 important group exhibitions in Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, USA, India, Germany, and other countries. In 2013, he received the Purvītis Prize for the series Earthworks. In 2015, Eglītis represented Latvia at the 56th Venice Art Biennale (with the work Armpit, created together with Katrīna Neiburga). Andris Eglītis has designed sets for theatre performances and operas and has also made paintings for the ceiling of the Festival Hall of the Latvian President’s Palace (2020) and an iron curtain for the stage at the Latvian National Opera and Ballet (2023). In 2020, Eglītis and a group of like-minded people founded the outdoor art space SAVVAĻA at his studio in Drusti Parish, and he remains one of its organizers.
This exhibition is organized as part of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA)’s 25th anniversary programme, during which we are looking back at what has been accomplished, as well as looking with curiosity to the future. Between 2006 and 2009, the LCCA organized five international group exhibitions in the grand hall of the Andrejsala Korpusa cehs (presently, the warehouse of the company Spirits & Wine) and the LCCA space Ēdnīca – Archeology of Reality (2006), Urbano-Logic (2007), Mobile Museum (2007), Video: Dusseldorf / Riga (2008), and the international comics exhibition Tell me more... (2009) – along with thirteen solo exhibitions by Kristīne Alksne, Andris Eglītis, Ēriks Božis, Armīns Ozoliņš Ilva Kļaviņa, Mark Raidpere, Gints Gabrāns, Elīna Ļihačeva, Ieva Jerohina, Krista Burāne, Nicolas Block, Raids Kalniņš, and Valdis Ozarinskis, and a diverse series of public events.
The walk series Time, Dawn, or a Passing Train is organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art. The project is supported by the Nordic Culture and Art Programme, Riga City Council, Satori, Riga Art Week, and the magazine Kulturas Diena.
The exhibition is organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art.
The exhibition is supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Culture and Art Programme and the Riga City Municipality.
Special thanks to the company Spirits & Wine for their support.