Gundega Rancāne’s Painting Exhibition “Being Present”

From 14 April to 8 May, Gundega Rancāne’s painting exhibition “Being Present” can be viewed in the window displays of the Latgale Cultural History Museum. G. Rancāne and painting have been inseparably linked since her first exhibition with her father at the age of 13. The exhibition took place at what was then still the Rēzekne Museum of Local History, where Gundega’s drawings were displayed alongside A. Rancāns’ woodcarving sculptures.

The presence of painting alongside her everyday work as director of the L. Rancāne Makašāni Vocational Secondary School, her public activities, household tasks and family life enriches the artist’s daily life in a special way and is reflected in her works of art.

“The intense and multifaceted rhythm of life is also reflected in my works,” says the artist. “Even in those moments when I am not in the studio at my easel, my eyes capture and store in my memory moments and sensations that settle in my imagination as particular moods, colour schemes and compositions.”

Her extensive experience in painting gives her freedom of expression, while also leaving room for surprise: “Life is a great miracle. There is no spring or autumn that is the same, no sunset over a lake that is ever repeated. There are things we logically plan in life and then act upon, but life is especially beautified by moments, events and views that we never anticipated. They provide the greatest inspiration and desire to paint, thereby preserving and recording that feeling of presence in paintings,” Gundega acknowledges. “It is very important for me to appreciate the present, its uniqueness, phenomena in nature, the presence of close and dear people, objects and delicious food. All this aesthetic quality of life sooner or later becomes concentrated in a painting. The very process of creating a painting, beginning with choosing or preparing the canvas, prolongs the feeling of presence during the most splendid moments of everyday life. Their splendour and significance are highly subjective, but in paintings they acquire an entirely different—much more universal—meaning. Even seemingly fleeting details—the play of light on onion greens, boots tossed into a corner, water plants frozen in ice, sunlight playing among apple blossoms or the full moon in willows—can give life this feeling of presence: to people, time and everything beautiful around us.”

The exhibition reflects the artist’s work in painting over the past five years, in which colour has always been of greatest importance, harmoniously “settling” into landscapes and still-life compositions on both small and large canvases.

Speaking about her attachment to the still-life genre, Gundega adds: “I often paint still lifes. In my feelings, they allow me to ‘capture’ and immortalise the small, beautiful joys and pleasures of everyday life. Dishes, flowers, food—fruit, fish, berries, wine, coffee…” Yet, when standing at the easel, there are many contradictions and inner struggles: “Painting is also a technical process and an ongoing series of professional challenges. It is a great joy when the result of this process—the painting—is also able to create and provoke associations and memories in the viewer, as well as each person’s own feeling of presence in life.”

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