Ieva Epnere
Ieva Epnere (Liepaja, Latvia, 1977) is a Riga based artist, who works mostly in the field of video and film, photography and textile. Personal and intimate stories are the starting points for her artistic reflections on topics such as history, identity, tradition, and ritual, often examining the remote Soviet history present in the nowadays reality. In her project we can see how collective memory is built based on the individual one. Epnere has empathetically reached into the depths of the ambivalent history that has been a part of her own life to present psychological probes and case studies imbued with the mystical atmosphere of the impressive nature, which often play an important role in her contemplative videos and films.
Ieva Epnere is a graduate of the Latvian Academy of Art, in 2011–2012 she completed a postgraduate program at HISK (Higher Institute for Fine Arts) in Ghent. In 2018 she presented her solo exhibitions On Water, Wind and Faces of Stone at Fogo Island Gallery, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada, and Hybrid Identities, at HIT Gallery, Bratislava; her works were also on display at the first Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, and Villa Vassilieff in Paris. In 2017 she participatedat How to Live Together, Kunsthalle, Vienna and Festival of Contemporary Art, Survival Kit9, Riga. Her recent solo exhibitions include Sea of Living Memories, Art in General, Dumbo, Brooklyn (2016) NY and Pyramiden and Other Stories, Zacheta Project Room, Warsaw (2015). In 2019 she is the winner the Purvītis Prize, Latvia’s highest award in the visual arts.