Ritums Ivanovs

Pop culture icons and Old Master paintings, tabloid press heroes, actors, musicians, athletes and porn stars are some of the characters commonly encountered in Ritums Ivanovs’ paintings. He is fascinated by stars as a cultural phenomenon and the visual power of glossy beauty, which the artist knows both how to exploit and ironically undermine. For several decades, Ivanovs has consistently worked with a streaking technique he developed, blending the stylistic traditions of pop art and photorealism. But in terms of content, his painting follows another path. Transferring photography to the canvas, the artist carefully deals with technically decorative issues and gives his personages emotional and psychological depths, which is revealed through the paintings to the viewer.

In “Stars. Lights On, Ernests Gulbis,” Ivanovs depicts the famous Latvian tennis player Ernests Gulbis. Around 2008, Gulbis enjoyed a meteoric rise in his tennis career. The surge of media attention made the young star famous. Ivanovs not only depicts this athlete – he chronicles this story of a 21st century Latvian and global pop culture icon.

Stars. Lights On. Ernests Gulbis. 2010.