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Aleksejs Naumovs

A Birthday

21.01.2009 - 09.02.2009

A Birthday – we know it is a celebration inviting us to feel joie de vivre and to be aware that it is the most precious thing we have – the time we’ve been given to think, search, feel amazement and gratification, to love and create. Aleksejs Naumovs would say TO PAINT! It is also in tune with the artist’s conviction, his lifestyle – it seems he could stand by his easel for twenty-four hours because, outside of painting, hardly anything else could bring about greater enjoyment in him. When studying art sciences with professor Herberts Dubins at the Art Academy, he analysed the multi-functionality of art, and one of those functions, the hedonism – bringing pleasure to the senses – is predominant at the exhibition of Aleksejs Naumovs. The selection of motifs – blooming gardens, the Seine, reflections in the canals of Venice, parks of Paris, Belvedere – alone testifies to that, but what impresses me most is the colours and light rousing the festive spirit and delight inside me.

Always wearing the hat of the rector and professor at the Art Academy, Aleksejs Naumovs nevertheless looks to find the tiniest break from work and off he flies – to Paris, Rome, Marseilles, Florence, Palermo, New York, Vienna – to paint. The proportions of colours and lights he brings alive on canvas cannot come from the studio, they can only be found in nature. Likewise, the painter’s skilful brilliance never ceases to amaze, his command of colours resembles a piano virtuoso at the instrument. He does not have to think theoretically about colours – that we get the green by mixing the blue with the yellow and, to soften it, a touch of red should be added. It may sound like magic but the art of Aleksejs Naumovs impresses us as one based on emotions and fascinating spontaneity when it seems that blue, green, pink, red specks and patches are spread purely at random but in fact they impart structure to the space.

Returning back to A Birthday – this time, it is not just the title of the exhibition. January marks the artist’s birthday and he has chosen to celebrate his birthday together with us in The Daugava Art Gallery. The celebration will continue through February 9.

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