Manipulations with space and time are the bases for the latest series of paintings by artist Alise Builevica. Motives of water, trees and bushes, that surrounds buildings and caresses human figures, are telling a story about aiming for a peaceful state of being and creates reality mutations. Artworks become a tool for navigating the surroundings, thoughts and illusions, when they become one.
Nature elements, modelled following Realism traditions that are being brought into a cityscape seemingly wards off anxiety, related to the pace of life that keeps on accelerating and the trouble of maintaining the balance between being surrounded by nature and the necessity to follow the laws of urban living.
Builevica depicts that the feeling of drowning can also be experienced while being surrounded by concrete walls; that you can get lost in between the piles of no longer necessary, thrown out stuff in the backyards of micro-districts.The painting approach that the artist is using shows her ability to divide the constructions of the environmental perception by layers, and speak about the efforts of a young human being to get a grip off the overall flow and cope with the sometimes claustrophobic feeling of endless rows of enlightened apartment building windows through visual language. The storyline encapsulated within eight artworks melts the author’s personal experience and outlines the features of her close ones. Everything, quoting Alise, is almost real – “like a dream, until you haven’t woken up”.
Alise Builevica (1998) has graduated from Janis Rozentals Art School and has gained the bachelor degree from the Department of Painting at the Art Academy of Latvia. She’s currently continuing her studies at the Masters Program. Builevica has also used the opportunity to enrich her skills at Tartu Kunstikool, Estonia in 2016 and Eupen Robert Shuman Institute, Belgium in 2018. She has taken part in group shows since 2017 and has received SEB Scholarship in Painting 2022. The exhibition in LOOK! Gallery is her first solo show.
