My works Mom & Dad Emergency, and Kaboo0m 3 are presently on show at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Riga. Artapestry 3 runs from 7th of august to 7th of september 2014. Link to the Museum.
Here is the press release:
The meaning of the exhibition “ARTAPESTRY3” is enclosed in its title, focusing our attention on Gobelin tapestry and reminding us about its historic legacy, which is rich in artistic and artisan culture traditions.
The field of tapestry is significant part of European culture which should be preserved and developed in the course of the 21st century. The organization of regular tapestry exhibitions is an excellent motivation for artists to engage in this discipline. The first international Gobelin tapestry exhibition was opened in 2005 in Denmark, and afterwards it travelled to France and Germany.
The initiator and organizer of the long-term international project “ARTAPESTRY” is the European Tapestry Forum, which in the year 2001 was founded by several outstanding European textile artists. The aim of the Forum is to disseminate knowledge regarding tapestry and to encourage artists to find different ways to use this “stitch and weave” technique as an artistic medium, and see how it fits into our contemporary world of diverse art directions and creative artistic expression. It means also paying tribute to a time-honoured classical weaving culture and updating it, and, in doing so, making tapestry appear as a sustainable and modern medium of art.
Each “ARTAPESTRY” exhibition is based on a careful selection of artworks, which is carried out by an international committee including experts from various fields of art: artists, educators and exhibition curators. The selection committee members for the “ARTAPESTRY3” exhibition were: the painter and art critic Hannu Castrén (Finland), Prof. Lesley Millar (Great Britain), the Professor and textile artist Margarethe Persson (Austria), the sculptor Kirsten Ortwed (Germany and Denmark), and the art expert Yves Sabouri (France). Out of 150 entries submitted by 87 artists, the selection committee chose 51 entries by 38 artists. The vast exhibition organized in Riga represents artists from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, France, Great Britain, Scotland, Lithuania, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Iveta Vecenāne, a textile artist from Latvia, is also among the artists who won the tough competition for this international show, and is represented here with her tapestry “Bowl”.
In 2012 the exhibition “ARTAPESTRY3” was opened at the Art Centre “Silkeborg Bad” inSilkeborg, Denmark, and in 2013 it was on show at the Museum of Central Finland in Juväskylän, and at the Ronneby Cultural Centre in Sweden. From January till May, 2014 the exhibition was held at the Musée Jean Lurçat in Angers, France.
The exhibition is a marvellous opportunity for the participating artists to speak to a vast international audience of textile art enthusiasts all across Europe. This year, when Riga enjoys the honour of being the Culture Capital of the European Union, the exhibition is on display also in Latvia.
Text: Rūta Rinka, Inese Baranovska