SILVA LINARTE 2022

International Painting Symposium


For the fourth time running, the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre hosted the Silva Linarte International Painting Symposium to honour the distinguished native of Latgale – artist and art educator Silva Veronika Linarte (1939–2018), celebrate her creative legacy and remember an entire generation of artists who shaped and transformed Latvian abstract painting.

This year, the symposium team included artists from Latvia, Greece, Poland and Peru. They worked in a shared creative space where their primary means of expression were colour, texture and the ephemeral sensations triggered by a direct and experiential engagement with the painting medium. This stimulating experience was enhanced by artist talks and presentations and hours and hours spent together, getting to know the Daugavpils Fortress, enjoying the Latgale landscape and exploring Silva Linarte’s artistic legacy, free from everyday cares and concerns and focusing only on creativity.


The 4th Silva Linarte Painting Symposium brought together:

Paola Baertl (Peru), Nika Grzymska (Poland), Michalis Karaiskos (Greece), Ingūna Levša (Latvia), Anita Meldere (Latvia) and Irīna Špakova (Latvia).


The body of work created at the symposium can be seen as a roadmap for abstract painting – the choice of colour, brushstroke and texture, each painter’s physical manipulation of the canvas and the specificity of their abstract imagery will vary from artist to artist, but, taken together, they paint a complete picture of the unique creative time-space experienced in the symposium fortnight.


The 4th International painting symposium “Silva Linarte” was held within the Latgale Cultural Programme with valued support from Daugavpils City Council, State Culture Capital Foundation, JSC Latvia’s State Forests and the Latgale Region Development Agency Association.

Exhibition period: 6 May – 26 June 2022