Ernest Vītiņš's solo exhibition "Aizstiklija"
From the 21st of January, Ernests Vītiņš invites you to enter "Aizstiklija" or "The place behind the glass" - the artist's mind with its creative tensions, opaque sensuous blurs and conscious, intense glimmering.
The interplay of the panel glass installation with the sculptures and the reproduction of the workshop setting aids the formation of an intimate time-space in which the glass art is created. The experience will be enriched by the opportunity to see more than the face of neatly accomplished works of art. The glass sculptures created specifically for this exhibition are like stopping points from material to spiritual values. Values that take the shape of luscious three-dimensional metaphors reminiscing family roots and heredity, search and discovery, reflecting each other, and above all - a passion for creating.
Ernests Vītiņš is one of the few artists in the world who has been professionally engaged in monumental (large-scale) stacking of glass for more than ten years, filling a faintly represented niche in the Latvian contemporary art environment. The sculpture "Effigy Sui", aka Self Portrait, integrated into this exhibition, was included in the Art Biennale in London in 2021.
In 2019 E. Vitins was awarded the national award "Kilogram of Culture" in the Visual Arts category for his exhibition "Within the glass labyrinth". In 2014 and 2016, E. Vitins was nominated for the Art Academy of Latvia alumni award for a substantial contribution in enriching Latvian art scope locally and internationally. E. Vitins made the largest contemporary handcrafted glass artwork in the Baltics - the 22 tonnes architectural glass installation "In Nature" at the Academic Center for Natural Sciences of the University of Latvia.