Freak in Freak Out
Body burning up from excitement, the rest of the world seems to merge in a distant blur. The adrenaline rush, the urgency, and the emotional extreme of losing oneself to their passion.

Reptiles
Though sharing the same space and being in each other’s presence, the presumably intoxicated subjects are emotionally disconnected and unable to interract with each other. Not staged, the scene celebrates an immediate juxtaposition of emotions. However, in a broader context, it serves as an allegory for the modern form of communication, often detached, either physically, such as through the digital world, or emotionally, or both.

Deported to Siberia
The first from a series of paintings inspired by my late grandfather’s photography collection which reveals the details of a life under Soviet occupation. Following the Soviet occupation of my home country Latvia in 1940, the next five decades were characterized by, russification, sovietisation, mass deportations and overall terror. My grandfather was deported to Siberia in 1949, where he took the photo which inspired this painting. What might seem a rather happy moment at the first glance is a deception, for in reality it was the state of being in a constant daze of vodka as a desperate measure to escape the misery and pain of being stripped of one’s identity and living on a foreign land, 2000 km away from home, in horrendous conditions.

Untitled 1+2 diptich
Continuing the series, based on my Grandfather’s photograph collection which reveals the details of a life under Soviet occupation. Following the Soviet occupation in 1940, the next five decades were characterized by russification, sovietisation, mass deportations and overall terror. This diptych shows my uncle in his childhood years, firstly, playing with a typical Soviet toy, and secondly being mobilised in the Soviet army at the age of 18, in the 1980s, where the innocent smile is long gone realising that the gun is now an actual one.