Kaspars Zariņš in his own word

The idea for making artworks with veneer came in 2014, when I was polishing floor at home and I realised how I could work with layering of wooden veneer linking hollows with painting. Initially I tried to work in a similar manner as one would with painting on canvas, but I quickly realised that a very different approach is needed. That experimentation resulted in those two nude, paintless artworks, where I was “torturing” the veneer until I truly understood what is hiding underneath.

Going through all my previous periods I came to abstraction. Better later than never (laughing). And I did not see any point in making figurative works as I did before. That type of art was no longer interesting for me, and I can’t make works that I’ve lost interest in.

The ideas that I am depicting is my internal turmoil. It is my reflection on life, emotional stories. Similarily like in music, work has a title, but what one actually hears is sound. In these artworks I see parallels to music, since I see these works as recodring melody of life. It can be dramatic, joyous, sad, it can vary, no? Interestingly, even when I paint abstractions I have to be clear in my mind with what I am depicting, like in music artworks are stories about unfulfilled love or inner demons, in my opinion humans rarely write about other occurances. Truth hides in emotions, not just the written text, and the truth reveals itself if the experience in question is real. This pure experience, that some call the truth I attempt to paint.

Now, with time, I understand veneer as material and can predict it, so now the challenge is to create new forms, to combine painting with carving. Probably I am a bit tainted by my soviet experience, since I try to make art that is gentle and aesthetically pleasing. Generally, Latvians can’t produce ugly thinngs even when they try; I say that in a loving way, it’s quite similar to Japanese sensibility of beauty.

I find it great that these artworks are heavy. It’s heavy work physically to create them, but also the fact that the end result has weight. My dad used to tell me in childhood that all good things are heavy so that they have a weight in life.

In terms of colour I know clearly before I even start the artwork, what exactly it is that I am aiming for. While painting I am looking for a colour relationship that interests me, that I can’t straight away identify with other examples of art history files that are saved in my mind. Everyone has their own, personal understanding of beauty in colour. Often people are scared of colour, but that’s more connected with their nationality and geographic location. Here in Latvia it is more common to appreciate different tonalities of grey and less of sparkling brightness.

Recently I’ve tried to avoid redundancy, making redundant details, so abstraction is seductive for me, but also in it one can become redundant. And I aim to paint that nothingness, which has substance and still is something. And to paint this personal experience is the hardest thing. To paint something that is yours and nobody else's.