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ANDRIS VITOLINS
URBAN POSITIVE. IN MEMORIAM

13.09.2007. - 06.10.2007.

Andris Vītoliņš’ solo exhibition “Urban Positive. In Memoriam” will be on view at Riga Gallery 1st and 2nd floor from 13 September 2007. New works created especially for this show will be exhibited – large-size paintings on industrial subjects and about 15 small-size works with different variations on the minibus “Latvija”.
The title as well as the exhibition is dedicated to by-gone times and also a testimony to them. In Memoriam is a capture of the past, dedication to the former industrial complex in Andrejsala, Soviet-time products, brands and factories long-gone today. This is a gesture intended to represent history. Unlike in previous works, new paintings feature objects with overflowing red paint resembling blood and creating a deconstructive feeling. The capturing of history seems not to be real but suggesting some dramatic events as a symbol of many people’s wretched lives.
The artist has implemented his ideas in various kinds of art – paintings, installations, objects. Now painting is Vītoliņš’ main occupation. For a long time the artist has been interested in industrial subjects: machines, various vehicles, mechanisms, factories and their details – pipes, screws, cranes, couplings. If the painter has often portrayed foreign industrial landscapes and factories before, the current exhibition will be dominated by Latvian landscape, port motifs, interiors of factories and industrial plants as well as the minibus “Latvija”.
Vītoliņš never paints people but man-made objects, material world, focusing on the materialised fruits of human imagination. He is interested in the urbanisation of environment, its refuge from the human control and transformation into dismantled mess. Fragments of technical constructions are depicted in a laconic vein, using precise, geometric lines that create an abstract web. Form becomes more important than content and what matters is not the painted object and its details but the linear ornament. Paintings feature bright contrasts – pure, sometimes luminescent colours stand out against a light background: vivid yellow, intense blue, brilliant red. The interplay of colours and lines result in the sense of movement and energy. So the artist’s works become decorative and easily conceived as design objects complementing an interior.

Andris Vītoliņš has obtained MA at Painting Department, BA at Visual Communication Department and studied 3 years at Design Department, Latvian Academy of Art. In 2004 the artist received Prize of the Year awarded by the journal “Latvijas Arhitektūra” for the best debut.
Vītoliņš actively participates in group exhibitions since 1996, both in Latvia and other European countries – Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria. The exhibition “URBAN POSITIVE. IN MEMORIAM” is Vītoliņš’ eighth solo show.

The artist’s works are found in the following collections:

Latvian National Art Museum, Latvia
Hansabanka collection, Latvia
Hypothekenbank, Essen, Germany
Private collections in Latvia and Estonia
ANDRIS VITOLINS. RAF Rotte Armie Frakcion



ANDRIS VITOLINS. ANDRIS VITOLINS. Trinity. In Memoriam