Dace Lielā
The Sea
18.05.2016 - 13.08.2016
From May 18 through July 2 the gallery Daugava will host a display of paintings, The Sea by the painter Dace Lielā.
Dace Lielā, born in Riga, in 1957 studied painting at Janis Rozentāls Riga Art high school (!968 – 1975) , the Latvian Art Academy’s Department of Painting (1975 – 1981) and Professor Eduards Kalnins’ Master Studio (1984 – 1987). After her studies she established her own style of painting and has been pursuing it persistently, patiently and creatively ever since. No wonder that Dace Lielā won the annual prize, A Kilo of Culture awarded by the Latvian Radio and Latvian TV in 2015 for her achievements in visual art in her solo exhibition in the gallery Daugava.
The artist has been contributing to exhibitions since 1980. After her 1986 solo show at the Painting Biennial in Kosice (formerly Czechoslovakia) she has regularly held solo exhibitions. Since 1989 Dace Lielā has participated in group exhibitions in Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Denmark, the USA, Portugal, Canada, France, Spain, Holland and elsewhere. Her paintings are to be found in numerous public collections including the Latvian Artists’ Union, Latvia’s National Art museum Arsenal, Jane Voorhes Zimmerli Art museum in New Jersey, Poznan Art museum, the Tretyakov gallery in Moscow, as well in many private collections, such as the collection of the King of Norway.
Dace Lielā paints figural compositions, landscapes and seascapes. The sea being a continual presence may appear to be invariable, monotonous, even depressive to a superficial observer but it has been a source of inspiration to Dace Lielā. Many of the motifs of her paintings have been derived from her thorough and persistent observations of the sea. She has the sensitivity to capture the interplay of light and shade over the water surface and on the sands of the beach in different seasons and climatic conditions.
For centuries painters have been concerned with color, light, form and space. Dace Lielā is no exception. Consciously or subconsciously the artist addresses viewers with her paintings, thus sharing her existential thoughts and feelings inviting to reconsider the values of life in order to ignore the superficial. Her painting is not a narrative but a philosophical message in colors about the sea as a landscape that evokes thoughts of eternity.