Exhibition. Some Instances of Encounters between Imagination & Matter.
Latvian artist Andris Eglītis returns to Sofia with the exhibition “Traces. Some Instances of Encounters between Imagination and Matter” presenting a selection of works from his major solo exhibition at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (2024).
The encounter between artwork and environment emerges as a transformative force throughout Eglītis’s practice. As the artist himself notes, the two painting series presented here — Common Space and Some Instances of Encounters between Imagination and Matter — approach painting from different positions. One unfolds “from within,” allowing materials and atmospheric conditions to evoke images; the other operates “from outside,” in motion, through observation and by following what catches the eye.
The current project continues this investigation of painting as a field of encounter between control and chance, between human impulse and the autonomy of matter.
In 2025, at Plus 359 Gallery, Eglītis realized the large-scale site-specific installation “Circulation.” During this installation, several canvases were initiated at the very beginning of the exhibition period in October and left as active elements within the environment. Subjected to materials and running water, over the course of two months, they did not merely occupy the space, but evolved within it, undergoing slow and unpredictable transformation.
Today, these canvases are revealed as testimonies of time, process, and interaction — “traces” that materialize the very idea of the encounter between imagination and matter. In dialogue with them, the two painting series from the Riga exhibition expand and deepen the scope of his practice for Bulgarian audiences.
‘Exhibition. Some Instances of Encounters between Imagination and Matter’ is supported
by the European Union NextGenerationEU program and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
