Shadow (2017) Painting by Kristine Abika

I am a professional painter and stage designer and continue to work in both fields, but in recent years I have been fascinated by tin, aluminum and copper as well as metal objects.

Metal is the material that fascinates and inspires me.

The first "tin memories" are from my early childhood in the countryside of Latgale, when my grandfather patched the inside of the garage roof with pre-war English tin plates, stamped with ink blue emu.

I looked at my metal sky and blue star stamps, and made up my own stories.

Later, during the study years I visited the market “Latgale”, where there were piles of used metal objects lying in the rain. Each of us, the different stakeholders, found something useful and valuable for ourselves.

My attraction to metal is like a double-sided magnet - we are attracted to each other.

It is the same with my passion for things and objects that are not classified as valuable antiquities: I create an imaginative story for each of them to include in my work - portraits of small, unnecessary things which are observed in monumental size; I've always been fascinated by the importance of close-ups and framing in composition and life in general.

It is important for me to see and continue interact with this material, which shows its earlier texture, substance, durability. By drawing I create a new linear mesh on an existing tin.

It is interesting to experiment and to create a new space with a few lines in the plate, using texture and roughness of the surface.

The tin surface inspires to continue and shows itself HOW to do it - the starting point is always given before, life is embedded in the plate itself - metal never feels as a "white sheet".

• Nationality: LATVIA
• Date of birth : 1975
• Artistic domains: Works by professional artists,
• Groups: Professional Artist Contemporary Latvian Artists