Contemporary Art Gallery
in cultural centre M/Darbnīca
A. Briāna iela 9, Rīga, Latvia
Wed - Sat 18:00 - 22:00
Egor Buimister
An Encounter
25.08 - 01.10.22
M/Gallery presents the solo show “An Encounter” by Latvian contemporary artist Egor Buimister. The exhibition is on view at M/Gallery from 25 August till 1st October.
An encounter is the most basic act of communication - it is accidental. The places where such things are still possible are liminal* places, a wound between the ecosystem of contemporary men and the things they strive to exorcise fiercely, though not always consciously. Any act of encounter is individual, everyone will have their own experience afterward. It is what fuels bad dreams and good stories. Things take shapes in the realm of an encounter, flowing from one form to another, unbound by the principles of taxonomy.
The exhibition is about people encountering nature, maybe first-time or repeated, but still badly needed. Today's man has been lost in the concrete jungle for a long time but was forced to look around again due to external circumstances and be with himself and nature. The artist has conjured this magical meeting with nature through the artworks, through which the unknown and mystical, yet very familiar and close to heart, weaves through.
The works of the collection are bound together by unifying mystery, but when you look at them, everything is known – it is the world we humans have around us. The characters you see in the artworks may seem familiar, but you shouldn't take what you see for granted, indulge in fantasy; perhaps the seemingly obvious is just a shadow from something else.
A strong literary influence in Egor's works permeates all of his visual works. The artworks are based on elements of nature, memories, religion, and mysticism. His works depict scenes of an individual confronting the unknown, whether in familiar or unfamiliar circumstances or with objects familiar or unknown.
“I have spent the last years in relative solitude, I live near the woods. There’s something coming from that side, from the cosmic infinity of the world hidden by skyscrapers and electric lights, from the outer dark of the night and the blinding sun of the noon. We will meet it, it is time to prepare. For the time being, we shall find good in reading poetry, shall find good in walking on the edge of the sea, picking berries in a grove, and studying animal trails. Rediscover and get ready, you never know what’s beyond the pale.”
Egor Buimister (1997. Riga, Latvia) is a contemporary Latvian artist mainly working in painting and drawing techniques. Egor has studied in Camberwell College of Arts, Goldsmiths, and King’s College London. His works were exhibited in multiple solo and group shows, such as “Some Ghost Stories“ (Riga, 2020), “Young Contemporaries” (London, 2019), and XI Young Painter Prize Finalists Exhibition (Vilnius, 2019). Egor’s art is included in private collections in the United States, the United Kingdom, Latvia, Sweden and Russia, as well as in the collection of Lewben Art Foundation in Lithuania.
* To be on the precipice of something new but not quite there yet.