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Two Young Artists Receive Latvia’s State Forests Scholarship in Art

“Marking the centenary of Latvia, we think even more about the country's further growth and development. Valuing forest as the largest renewable resource in Latvia, we invited students to create works of art and reveal their vision of skilled and sustainable forest management also the next 100 years,” said Tomass Kotovičs, Head of LVM Communication Unit of JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) announcing the winners of the scholarship competition “Latvia's State Forests Scholarship in Art 2018”. Out of the ten finalists, two students of the Art Academy of Latvia Anete Kalniņa and Marika Džule will share the main prize - 1500 euros for further development of their artistic talent. Congratulations!

It is already the second year that LVM in cooperation with the Art Academy of Latvia, organises the grant scholarship competition “Latvia's State Forests Scholarship in Art”, linking creativity with the growing role of forest in the Latvian economy. Last year, young artists were invited to think about the topic “Forest Grows”, while this year’s theme is “Forest for Latvia. Next 100”.

The works by Anete Kalniņa "White and Black", "Evening Light" are both equally important and valuable

 “I spend summers in Kolka, there is sea and pine forests, the road to Kolkasrags. This is also the theme that I deal with in my works and what I think about every day,” says Anete Kalniņa, the winner of Latvia's State Forests Scholarship in Art, who considers her participation in the contest to be logical and natural, because nature, landscape and landscape abstractions are also the motives of her previous work.

Last year, Anete wanted to apply for the LVM scholarship, but due to various unforeseen circumstances, the deadline for the submission of works was delayed. “This year I started again and - I succeeded! I am very happy about it. Life goes its own way, all you need to do is make a wish, and things will happen,” says the young artist.

“At first glance, my works may seem simplistic, but when you look at them longer, I hope that you can feel the texture of the tree. I wanted to create a spatial feeling for the viewer “to come into my work”. Forest is like a jewel - one is bigger and brighter, the other is smaller and more colourful, but both are equally important and valuable,” Anete describes her work.

“I think that nature will be my theme also in the future, only now I am starting to think about human silhouettes in it. But this thought still needs to grow,” says the young artist, whose works are still to be seen at the exhibition “On the Way to Kolka” (Pa ceļam uz Kolku) at the Latvian Artists' Union, in Riga until 9 December.

“Māra” by Marika Džule - the idea came itself

“Forest is a sacred place for me, I often go there with my family or alone to rest. Thinking about the next 100 years of Latvia, I have the feeling that there is a higher force that takes care of forest. It is how I started to think about Māra, the Latvian symbol of fertility and earth,” says the young artist Marika Džule about the idea beneath her work, “there's a human being in the painting, but at the same time it's such a subtle, mythological thing.”

The young artist believes that competitions devoted to such inspirational and, at first glance, seemingly intangible themes should be held even more often. “You do not always need a big-scale work of art to get the right effect and mood. After completing the work, I submitted it for the competition, but did not take a photo of it. And now after some time, I see my work as if for the first time. In my memory it was slightly different,” Marika shares her impressions.

  Open gallery 

Already since November, the finalists' works are exhibited in LVM Customer Centre in Riga. And they will be there until 16 December.

Authors of the other eight best works of art Elīna Apeltiņa, Santa Vasiļeva, Tatjana Višņakova, Lauma Kokoreviča, Kristīne Rublovska, Dārta Lote Bērziņa, Ilze Aulmane and Anete Aizbalte received recognition for their participation in the competition.

In order to objectively evaluate the works by the young artists from both forestry and artistic point of view, three representatives of LVM, as well as the Rector of the Art Academy of Latvia Prof. Kristaps Zariņš and Assoc. Prof. Andris Vītoliņš were part of the jury. The decision on granting the scholarship was made by a jury, assessing the contestants' artistic professionalism and work compliance with the creative task of the competition -  to depict the theme “Forest for Latvia. Next 100” in their works of art.