Hillfort

Aija Zariņa is a prominent personality in Latvian art, actively advocating for idealism and personal freedom, against conformism. Her main theme is human existence, its fundamental conflicts and continuous spiritual choice. In the early 1980s, she turned to landscape, still life and portrait solutions, which are influenced by the classical modernist aesthetics of the 20th century. Since 1987 she has been creating spatial objects, installations in urban and indoor environments, mainly made of boards. In the 1990s she used unprimed fabric without a subframe, glass, transparent plastic, tree trunks. She was interested in photography as a medium for documenting and interpreting art (significant collaboration with photographers M.Bogustovs, J.Deinats). The conditional figurativism of the works is reduced to a laconic sign symbolising the search for spiritual harmony. Aija Zariņa was born on 12 January 1954 in the village of "Skujiņi" in Jēkabpils district, in the family of a worker and a teacher. In 1982 she graduated from the Painting Department of the Latvia Art Academy. Participates in exhibitions since 1980. Solo exhibitions in Salaspils, Jelgava, Riga, New York, Helsinki, Paris, Hamburg, Rovinj, Berlin, Szczecin, etc. Member of the Artists' Union since 1982. Teacher at Riga LMU (1983-84), Faculty of Pedagogy at the University of Latvia (1986-87). Public relations specialist at the VMM (2000-02), exhibition curator ("Antins", 2001). She has designed set and costumes for Māra Ķimele's productions. Is the subject of the documentary film "The Abduction of Europe" (director A.Saulītis, 1998).