Academic Centre
This exhibition is devoted to the light and the seeking of it. To recognise and behold the sparkle of light, its reflection in nature, the human soul, and in the sky. The key symbol of this exhibition is a flower and the play of lights on its petals. The light as the sun, the light as love, humanity, knowledge, evolution and awakening of the mind.
The artist Ēra Zalcmane obtained a Bachelor’s, then Master’s degree in Art from the Graphic Art Department of the Art Academy of Latvia, as well as a Master’s degree in Social Psychology from the University of Latvia. Her scientific research has been focused on the psychophysiology of colours and art therapy. Since her childhood the author has been interested in art and psychology. From early age it has been important to her to comprehend people and their souls, therefore art and psychology have now interlaced together.
When painting on silk, the artist spreads numerous layers. The first colour is flooded like watercolour painting, then there are several layers of glazed paints. Graphic curves and its rhythmic flow of outline colour are also very important. Special significance is attached to colours’, from both the artistic and psychophysiological aspects.
At the beginning the flowers seen in the pictures are particularly studied and drawn from nature, but then they are changed during the process of creation and turn into stylized and symbolic ones. The flower as a symbol of soul and a touch of light. Several works in this exhibition were created as mandalas, or sacral circular compositions, with the center as a gist of psychic energy and self-arranging. C.G. Jung regarded the symbolic imaginative composition of mandalas as a spiritual, cosmic or psychic order.
Every blossom from these mandala compositions symbolizes some aspect of the human soul, irradiated and lit up by the divine light.
Ēra Zalcmane is a lecturer at the Faculty of Pedagogy, Psychology and Art of the University of Latvia, and has been employed in the UL academic sphere since 2007. Prior to this, she taught composition and coloristics at the Latvian Academy of Culture and the International Higher School of Practical Psychology. She started working with children and youth in the art sphere in 1988, at Baldone School of Art, and continues to do this to the present day.
Ēra Zalcmane was also occupied with etching, linocut and mezzotint techniques as an art designer. She has also worked in the publishing house “Artava” as a book illustrator and, thought her book illustrations, has participated in several international exhibitions in Slovakia, Japan and Estonia. The artist has had five solo shows, and she regularly takes part in group exhibitions.
The author likes to study and analyze a person’s character and emotions by portraying it in sanguine, charcoal and crayon techniques.
