Jānis Avotiņš

Jānis Avotiņš’s paintings take us to a temporal and spatial vacuum, a state of suspension. Timeless and time-specific, indeterminate and multivalent, real and imagined aspects of reality seem to coalesce in diffuse colors and lighting, while the pictorial spaces oscillate between resolution and clear composition. The special, category-defying sense of temporality and space is also conveyed through the integration of the canvas texture, where pigments seem to have been caught as if by a light breeze. The painterly light appears to elude the laws of physics in its omnipresence and direction, acting as an autonomous and overpowering element that runs like a thread through the artist’s œuvre. Atmospherically dense, his mysterious paintings reveal cinematographic scenes with contemplative figures embedded in natural, architectural, or void settings.

Jānis Avotiņš’s works can be found in reputable collections around the world, including the Charles Saatchi Collection, London, UK; François Pinault Collection, Paris, France; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; Hort Family Collection, New York, USA and theRubell Museum, Miami, USA.