Publications

Ivars Heinrihsons. Code. - exhibition catalogue (Ed. Ilze Zeivate). -
Riga: Maksla Xo gallery, 2018. - 24 p.

Māksla XO gallery, Riga 09.11 - 05.12.2017
Museo Fundación Antonio Pérez, Cuenca 03.05 - 03.07.2018

Ivars Heinrihsons’ solo show “CODE” opens the door to one of the most quintessential creative expressions of the artist’s personality. For the artist, the HORSE signifies not only an aesthetic fascination with form or a romantic disposition, internally present in all of us. It is the artist himself. Something that happens within oneself – conscious, intuitive but yet to be understood.

The exhibition “CODE” is part of Ivars Heinrihsons’ travelling exhibition project “Art from Latvia. Ivars Heinrihsons’ Quixotic greetings for Latvia’s Centenary” in Spain in 2018. It is a reflection on the influences of Spanish culture on Latvian creative personalities including painter Ivars Heinrihsons.
The interaction between Latvian and Spanish cultures is particularly marked in the 1930s through the figure of Latvian philosopher, psychologist and translator Konstantins Raudive and the first Latvian translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece on Don Quixote. The close connection with Spanish painting and similarities with the Quixotic spirit can also be observed in the works of the contemporary Latvian painter Ivars Heinrihsons. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Ivars Heinrihsons abandoned “colourfulness” in painting and deliberately choses an achromatic palette – discovering the grey and the black with El Greco, perceiving Goya’s specific brick red as his own, but in his drawing recognizing the special brown characteristic of Tàpies. We can also sense the Spanish spirit, Antonio Saura’s dramatic expression and tension, in the gesture of black, white and grey lines in Heinrihsons’ galloping horses.
Ivars Heinrihsons is one of the most vivid figures in Latvian painting of this time – a painter, a brilliant representative of neo-expressionism in Latvian contemporary art, and for many years a professor of painting at the Art Academy of Latvia. He has recurrently studied Spanish painting during his travels around Spain, examining artists’ works in museums as well as visiting their creative environments. For Heinrihsons, visiting Spain means getting closer to Goya, El Grecoand Antonio Saura not only virtually also directly through their art, the local surroundings and mentality. He feels them as his own, despite being on the opposite side of Europe.
Ivars Heinrihsons (1945) graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia in 1973. His works are in public collections – Latvian National Museum of Art and Artists' Union of Latvia (Riga, Latvia), the Samlung Friedeman Stockart (Munich, Germany), Grafikens Hus Collection (Mariefred, Sweden), State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia), Zimmerly Art Museum (New Jersey, USA).
Ivars Heinrihsons lives and works in Riga, Latvia. (Ilze Žeivate, 2018)

Ivars Heinrihsons’ travelling exhibition project in Spain is part of Latvia’s Centenary celebration programme and has been organized thanks to the cooperation between the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in the Kingdom of Spain, the Māksla XO gallery in Riga, the Fundación Antonio Pérez and Cuenca City Council.
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Swan Lake. 2009.Riga
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Ivars Heinrihsons. 2005. Riga

"Ivars has the power, which controls the adesroys and reconstructs," Helena Heinrihsone.

"Ivars Heinrihsons (1945) - his paintbrush is dancing now. Not counting, philosophizing or running into the unknown seeking of own, but it is dancing on the canvas.
Sometimes it seem if it could be possible to write with the white colour on the white canvas, Heinrihsons' wellknown black and grey horses would turn into a white light in ever moment.

Horse, horse mortification, mad runs or horse dances. They use to be fighting and lyrical, sad and playful, paradical ceremonial and breakable like they were made from porcelain.
Now and then they are running to fly up in the air like they were in the flight.
Ivars Heinrihsons always emphasizes that the horse is inside of the painter like the typical form of the nature. And in this moment form is in the harmony," Ilze Žeivate.
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