Jānis Avotiņš

Jānis Avotiņš' works show sublime sceneries of single passersby against architectural backdrops as well as groups of people which are reminiscent of historical newspaper coverage of political and social events. This work cycle is combined with paintings of figures in dancing poses.

Avotiņš is known for his diffuse and mysterious paintings of human figures in indistinguishable spaces. The delicate apparitions of his figures adumbrate an ephemeral reality. Opaquely nebulous coloration immerses the subjects in an inaccessible calm, but at the same time the figures exhibit a striking presence. In peeling figures from their context and by way of metaphors of omission and void, Avotiņš reflects the mechanisms of cultural symbolic systems, collective symbolisms, and ideologies: The figures without their environmental context, and therefore without assignable milieus or functions, are thrown back on their own resources. Avotiņš’s artistic practice thus constantly reflects on subjective and objective constructions of reality as well as the disintegration and transformation of social structures and truths.