Elza Sīle

Elza Sīle is an internationally recognised Latvian painter of the younger generation, with an original artistic style. Although she has chosen painting as her first medium, at first glance she is quite detached from it. In Sīle’s works, painting challenges traditional conventions, testing the very essence of painting as a medium and its boundaries. Giving the works a spatial nature, Sīle creates abstract assemblages which comment on and constantly argue with the formal qualities of the language of painting.

These paintings are reminiscent of topographical maps, construction sites, board games or miniature stages, on which the artist explores conceptual or substantial painting issues. 

According to the artist, the work depicts a body of fragments collected over a lifetime – overheard conversations, books read, songs heard, situations seen on the street. Sīle’s interest is in placing these specific fragments in various combinations and arrangements, as well as in their formal relationships.

Crooked Things – Marble Bathtub. 2018.

Habitual Traps – Eve Delight Islands. 2018.

Little flag meeting. 2017.