On February 13, artist and illustrator Roberts Rūrāns will open his first institutional solo exhibition, Chestnut and the Universe. The exhibition will reveal the wide range of the author’s work — from bright, internationally recognised illustrations to personal, spiritual paintings in which contemporary visual language is intertwined with motifs from Christian tradition. The exhibition will be on view in the small hall of the Zuzeum Art Museum until May 10.
The exhibition Chestnut and the Universe brings together more than 80 works created between 2018 and 2025. They are arranged in sequences — from playfully ordinary, secular themes and commercial commissions to more personal, spiritual explorations, in which the fusion of tradition and contemporaneity is essential, as are playfulness in image-making and the embedding of the sacred in bodies — in their movements and gestures.
Roberts’ visual language is based on simple, expressive forms arranged in bright, clearly structured compositions. A warm sense of irony sometimes slips into his hand, appearing in light-hearted media messages, as well as stripping complex, expansive ideas of their rhetorical heaviness. In this exhibition, illustration becomes an instrument for speaking both about the visual environment of our everyday lives and about quieter, harder-to-define yet deeply significant inner states and quests.
Roberts Rūrāns is an illustrator and artist, a graduate of the Art Academy of Latvia, who shaped his professional path through hands-on experience — by collaborating with cultural institutions, media outlets, and brands in Latvia and abroad. His work can be seen in projects for The New York Times, The Olympics, Hermes, AirBaltic, NATO. Critical discourse on contemporary art often speaks about the relationship between form and content and the balance between the commercial and the conceptual — the core themes that also indirectly resonate in Roberts’ professional practice.
The exhibition Chestnut and the Universe will be on display in the small hall of the Zuzeum Art Museum from February 13 to May 10. Shortly after the opening, on February 14 at 12:00, visitors are invited to join Roberts on an exhibition tour.
Viedokļi