07.03. - 06.04.2024

Galerija "Māksla XO"

Elizabetes iela 14, Rīga, LV 1010

ANNA POMMERE

Silver Curve

“The feeling of God’s presence resembles a fine silver line - a curve, like a cardiogram, that runs unevenly. It goes up and down, stabilises for a while, and then it all starts again. The curve must not disappear, must not stop, because everything ends with it.
The “Silver Curve” series is dedicated to this feeling of the presence of God, of the transcendent in the human soul. But these works are not about God. They are about people, especially mothers and their feelings.

I painted these figures for the first time in 2016. It was three years after the birth of my child when I first began to grapple with the most critical, existential questions - what is the meaning of our lives,does God exist, what awaits us after death, what is the nature and purpose of suffering.
I came across the book “Ľudové plasticky”, a catalogue of religious wooden sculptures from Slovakia from the 18th to 19th centuries, created by self-taught local artists. The naivety, love, hope and at the same time the horror and pain of unbearable human suffering in many wooden faces of the Mother of God, especially in the Pietà sculptures, formed a strong contrast and touched me deeply. They fully corresponded to the feeling of "existential rupture" that I felt at that time and that I also wanted to show in my works.

Watercolour on linen is my favourite technique. It brings a lot of randomness to the painting process, works with the artist like a co-author and always makes me look forward to the final result of the painting. Some works are lightly embellished with oil and egg tempera,"” Anna Pommere, 2024.

Anna Pommere (1978) is interested in the various aspects of individual and collective memory as well as old photographs. She has developed a sensitive watercolour technique on linen and creates assemblages from found objects or objects bought at flea markets. She regards collecting as a conceptual form of art. Anna Pommere graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Painting (2018), the Faculty of Computer Graphics of the International University of Practical Psychology (2007), the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Latvia (2002). Since 2012, she has regularly participated in group exhibitions in Latvia and abroad and has organised several solo exhibitions. Anna Pommere received: the 3rd Place in Nomination “Landscape” - 2nd International Watercolour Contest (Vienna, Austria, 2020), the scholarship for painter Pauls Puzins Figurative Master Workshop (Riga, Latvia, 2018) and is a laureate of SEB scholarship in painting competition (Riga, Latvia, 2018).