Evita Vasiļjeva

Evita Vasiļjeva (1985) is one of the most talented Latvian contemporary sculptors, who creates sculptures from various materials. Robust and brutal forms interact with fragile, almost ethereal textures: concrete blocks against refined and sharp reinforcement bars, thick rubber against dissolving powder, and all the elements of the outer world against the inner narrative. The artist explains that her works seek to “make more emotionally human that which we call contemporary art, which has become encrusted with cold perfectionism, pushing aside the artist as a psychological being.”

 The work “Hormones” comprises sound-activated light sculptures which change colour in response to the noise produced by people nearby. The more visitors gather in the space of the work and the louder they behave, the more “nervous” the lights become. In total silence, the work remains in a static condition. While the semantics of such robust, indifferent concrete forms encompass powerful stories about industrialisation and utopian modernist projects, the sculptural work itself does not appear so abstractly conceptual, because suddenly it is transformed into a being with its own nervous system and fluctuating hormonal level.

The spatial and interactive sound installation "Bed-Room-Bed", created between 2020 and 2022, is a multilayered work of contemporary art that reflects on the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic while also exploring and explores the artist's survival strategies and creative practices in a situation marked by isolation, uncertainty, and a radically altered rhythm of life. During the pandemic, the artist's bed literally became her workshop, and she turned to the specificity of the place, asking: do the rooms in which we sleep affect our subconscious and, consequently, our dreams? The artist has redrawn fragments of her dreams on blankets, creating diary entries. Later, Vasiļjeva travelled between Riga, Paris, and Marseille with these blankets packed in a suitcase, preparing for exhibitions and spending periods of quarantine in each of the cities. Thus, the blankets are not only documentation of dreams, but also evidence of geographical movement and isolation.

Hormones. 2017.

Bed-Room-Bed. 2020–2022.