Otto Zitmanis

Otto Zitmanis’ works stand out for their distinctly expressive style, with intense colours, deformed form, acute shadow and stressed, brutal brushstrokes. His paintings are usually devoted to people’s dramatic relationships, surging emotions and destructive experiences. Perfectly accomplished classic painting technique, expressionistic spontaneity and the enormous inner energy of the deformed figures make Zitmanis’ decadent criminal dramas both decoratively alluring and disturbingly revolting. 

In “Inexplicable Domesticity” Zitmanis continues to threaten, provoke and entertain his viewers. The artist always finds the appropriate colour scheme for heightened emotions, using large colour fields and often choosing vivid counter-colour contrasts. An aestheticized manner is felt not only in the expressive gesture tradition of 20th century painting, but also as an anti-glamour protest, which is one of the latest trends in 21st century Latvian art.  Balancing on the boundary between vulgar brutalism and self-serving decorativism, Zitmanis’ dramatic scenes promote reflection about subjective experiences, endless struggles with subconscious demons and problematic aspects of male-female relationships.

Inexplicable Domesticity. 2009.