We are pleased to present the major site-specific installation “Circulation” by Latvian artist Andris Eglītis. A conceptual artist exploring the various liminal ways of being in the world, Eglītis works with painting as a medium in an expanded field. He is known for his masterful handling of both monumental and miniature scales of painting, as well as for his ingenious engineering skills in constructing structures that range from his own large open-air studio in the woods, theatre and opera sets to systems for producing epic-scale works, often executed collaboratively and literally with nature.
“Circulation”—an immersive installation created specifically for the century-old water tower in Sofia—is inspired, on one hand, by his expedition earlier this year across Eastern Europe and by the clashing feelings of familiarity and exoticism he experienced. Connected through water sources around which cultures have historically formed, the Balkan region today still appears caught in the post-socialist dichotomy of periphery and centre. Translating these experiences into matter, over the past few weeks, Eglītis has been working in a studio in Lukovit, northern Bulgaria, where he has been collecting and combining found and traditional materials, clay vessels, and placing them in various “situations” where matter and natural forces exist in precarious relationships.
Artworks
Earthworks / 2025
canvas on plywood, soil, clay, minerals, acrylic
90 x 60 cm
Earthworks / 2024
canvas on plywood, soil, clay, minerals, acrylic
85 x 83 cm
Created in the shared space of Andris Eglītis’s studio in Lukovit, northern Bulgaria, the painting reflects an environment shaped by the rhythms of collective work, material presence and the ongoing dialogue between art and its surroundings.
Common Space / 2025
Oil on canvas
60 x 70 cm
About the artist
Andris Eglītis (b. 1981) lives and works in Riga and at the open-air art space Savvaļa. Since 2008, he has held more than twenty solo exhibitions and participated in over thirty significant group exhibitions in Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, the United States, India, Germany, and other countries. Most recently, in 2024, the Latvian National Museum of Art organized his major solo exhibition Some Instances of Encounters between Imagination and Matter. In 2013, he received the Purvītis Prize, Latvia’s most prestigious visual arts award, for his Earthworks series. In 2015, Eglītis represented Latvia at the 56th Venice Art Biennale (with Armpit, together with Katrīna Neiburga).
Eglītis has also designed sets for theatre performances and operas, and has created commissioned paintings for the ceiling of the Festival Hall of the Latvian President’s Palace (2020) and for the iron curtain of the stage at the Latvian National Opera and Ballet (2023). In 2020, Eglītis and a group of like-minded collaborators founded the outdoor art space Savvaļa in his studio in the Drusti municipality, where he continues to serve as one of its organisers.