Edvards Grūbe

Several key themes recur repeatedly in Edvards Grūbe’s oil paintings. These are the archetypal concepts mother, bread, door and window. However, the central element of Grūbe’s works is the conflict between energy and harmony. Viewed from a distance, his works create a peaceful, balanced impression, but up close they are the embodiment of life force. The artist paints quickly in order to retain emotional freshness and lightness, to put the mood that has captured him on the canvas, dressing it in the textures of broad brushstrokes.

The painting “Opening” is a view captured in the early morning through the door of Grūbe’s country house. This is a subject he never tires of experimenting with, because the changing light also changes the mood, which becomes colour and ends up on the canvas. Shedding everything superfluous, the artist concentrates on the interplay between darkness and light at moments when indoors and outdoors meet. However, the light and colour in Grūbe’s paintings never becomes isolated abstraction, as it always retains its ties with Latvia’s nature.

Opening. 2012.