On January 10 at 15:00, artist Modris Brasliņš’s drawing exhibition “Two” was opened on the 2nd floor of the Ogre History and Art Museum, where the portrait is revealed as a visual practice in exploring the borderlands of human consciousness and unconsciousness. The exhibition features more than 20 black and white drawings created with minimal means of expression — paper and pencil.
The exhibition “Two” portrays the portrait not as a fixation of external resemblance, but as a process that reveals the tension between the visible and invisible, between the surface layer of consciousness and the deeper layers of the psyche. Modris Brasliņš’ drawing series encompasses models personally close to the artist and more distant ones, foregrounding a psychological and existential perspective.
It seems that Brasliņš thinks in images, which he creates in the drawing process, while most of us think in words. Unlike verbal thinking, which structures experience in linear, logical sequences, visual thinking maintains a connection with more archaic mechanisms of perception, where time and meaning are not subject to rational hierarchy. In this context, drawing becomes a medium in which time unfolds multidimensionally — it is both linear and measurable, as well as lateral, recessive and vertical, revealing experience as a continuous, infinite process.
The exhibition title “Two” marks the dualism that permeates the entire exposition: consciousness and unconsciousness, viewer and image, presence and distance, external and internal. This division is not static, it exists as a dynamic tension in which each portrait simultaneously functions as both a reflection and a mirror.
Modris Brasliņš graduated from the A. Naumov and K. Zariņš painting workshop at the Latvian Academy of Arts. He has participated in several international drawing biennials in India, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, and has been actively involved in Latvian contemporary art processes. He was an artist for the magazine “Rīgas Laiks”, received several awards, including recognition at the international drawing biennial in India and the Latvian Publishers Association competition “Golden Apple Tree”. Modris Brasliņš lives and works in Ogre.
The creation of the exhibition was supported by an author’s scholarship from the AKKA/LAA association.
The exhibition can be viewed in the museum’s Small Exhibition Hall on the second floor. Admission is free on the opening day, January 10. The exhibition will be open until March 29.
Exhibition Curator: Māris Grosbahs
Graphic Design: Modris Brasliņš
Exhibition Design: Modris Brasliņš, Māris Grosbahs
Communications Specialist: Laura Tuča
Technical Implementation: Guntars Andersons, Nils Miķelsons
