My first year as an artist

It is 23 September 2026, my birthday, the moment when I can take stock of what I have done and dream about what I want. Exactly a year has passed since I decided that I am an artist. At times that conviction surges in me with the force of a volcano, and at other times I have to dig for it, buried deep in the clay of Latvia.

This year my wish to give myself over to a moment of absolute freedom, through colour, through layers of texture and through the shape of the canvas, has certainly been stronger than any need to fit a formula for success. And yet, without recognition from outside, without appraisal and without someone to look at it, a work of art lives out its story only in part. That is exactly why, so that my work would meet a viewer too, I set up a studio, lived through my first solo exhibition, and built this website as a place to come to know me and my paintings.

In my first year I have enjoyed the making of every single painting, have let go, have made mistakes and have learned from them. I have been glad of my first clients, and I have met wonderful artists who inspire and give courage to keep going. I have grown my conviction and my skills, and I will go on doing so in the master’s programme at the Art Academy of Latvia. This year has seemed unbelievable at times, but I have always believed that the only way to get a thing done is to do it. And sometimes daring to try is already a considerable step forward.

Ahead of me there are many more hours in the studio, many more strokes of paint and many more canvases, which will form the handwriting of my creative language. But it may be that right now my not knowing and my getting it wrong are what make a primal kind of magic, in which the only thing that matters is the making.

Let the work speak for the year, look at the paintings →: Art