Maija Kurševa
Maija Kurševa works in various media (drawing, silkscreen printing, illustration, installations etc.), but drawing is usually at the core of her ideas. In her early works, Kurševa synthesised her style, extensively employing comics and elements of teenage urban subculture. In the series “The Three-Legged Apparition” the artist has created a chain of vivid, mutually unrelated episodes where funny, humanoid mutants attack each other, curse each other, vomit and assume pornographic poses in a hallucinogenic world. Destructive motifs featuring violence, erotica and addiction intertwine with absurd situations. Scribblings in notebooks offer a glimpse into the artist’s train of thought and the graphic evolution of her characters.
The installation “Serial” is a work from a later period, the central theme of which is the process of creating an artwork from the technological and practical viewpoint. Self-reflection regarding creative activity and productivity as well as stillness, observation and the stream of thought are still key subjects for the artist.
Kurševa deliberately conceptualizes drawing and line. The paper-cut collage "Fair Copy" (2025) is a key work from her exhibition at gallery “Māksla XO.” In Kurševa’s practice, drawing is a precise mode of recording thought, stripped of all excess. She creates spatial, abstract drawings from paper cut-outs and strokes of acrylic paint, striving for purity, order, and clarity - an approach that resonates with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s idea of artistic practice as a strategy in the struggle against chaos.
"Fair Copy" is a minimalist, graphically refined and meticulously executed gesture, open to interpretation. Kurševa works with the fundamental elements of graphic art: point, line, plane, space, and movement.
In the summer of 2025, at the Kim? Contemporary Art Centre festival “Ēdene: Sweet Sixteen,” a polychrome series of works by Maija Kurševa was presented, notable for the equal presence of colour alongside linear and spatial form. The blue “twin” works "Direction" and "Followers" from this series mark a significant new turn in Kurševa’s practice.
Serial. 2013.
Four diaries: 2008-1, 2009-1, 2009-2, 2010.
16 graphics from the series “The Three-Legged Apparition“. 2010.
Fair Copy. 2025.
Two works from the series “Scholē”:
Direction. 2025.
Followers. 2025.
