Maksla XO Gallery – PAPER POSITIONS Berlin 2020

Artist: Ivars Heinrihsons

Booth - A16

www.paperpositions.com/en/berlin/

Drawing as a Sign of Inner Movement

„Drawing – it is even more unique than painting. Back in the day there was a belief, that painting is an advanced drawing. In Latvian language words drawing (zīmējums) and sign (zīme) have the same root. Artist creates signs. A sign is a fixated gesture, thought or feeling, as the poetess Monta Kroma once said, it’s the inner movement of arms and legs. Pick up a piece of charcoal with your hand and draw, it is the same gesture. If you’ve no hands, draw with your nose, or anything else - that’s what I tell to my students.

Piano IV. 2020, acrylic, charcoal, white chalk on paper, 158x155cm

My main subjects – piano and horse – these are the forms of expression of my inner self.
Piano is the opposite of horse, it’s a contrast, sign of civilization, symbol of culture. Horse and piano, order and chaos, stillness and movement – I could name another bunch of opposites. Piano has a certain shape, horse has a shape too, but it is expressive. Horse too can be compared to a musical instrument, a flute perhaps. I find it more emotional, liberated. Aside from musicality abilities, what matters in playing piano is the technique. It’s not that anyone can sit down and play. When I’m alone, I sit down by the piano and give into the meditation, allowing myself to press the keys intuitively and enjoy the play as much as my unpracticed hands allow me. I associate piano with the basics of painting. We’ve got a grand piano at home, because my sister practiced in her room when she was young.
It is a system of images – hores, piano and ballet – that changes, develops in connection with events in my personal life, perception, feelings, in different ways: expression of form, organized mass and movement, real or free from subjection. Shapes were differently arranged, deformed, divided into pieces. These are various phases of creativity, periods, revelations, this is a path that reveals the epoch, the personality” – Ivars Heinrihsons.

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.
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), Museo Fundación Antonio Pérez (Cuenca, Spain), 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.

Support:
On the 18th of April 2016 Mākslas galerija Māksla XO Ltd. has signed an agreement Nr. SKV-L-2016/57 with Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA)  for the project "International competitiveness promotion", which is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.