“The exhibition in Valmiera I named after one of the exhibited works –“Access to Secret”. I believe this time can be featured by a painting depicting one reality overlapping another one. Often repeated in the news word combinations inspire and boost my imagination. Outside the regular context they form a poetic world. Hybrid war, red lines, shell company, fiscal pillow… Also “access to state secret” sounds like something emerging from a fairy tale. The paintings will keep changing, while perceived in a different context, within the exhibition assembling works created over the past decade. And the viewer will receive an access to secret from me.”- Ieva Iltnere.
Ieva Iltnere is one of the brightest and most creatively charged artists of her generation. Through intimate plot her art talks about big, significant topics important both for each individual personally and for the wider society in general. Ieva Iltnere has created her own system of images with a bright individual style. Ieva enjoys painting large format works, where an idea is expressed not only in colour gammas, but also in the uniquely characteristic spatial sign language. The creative work of the painter could be described as gently challenging. She manages to maintain her recognizable style at the same time undergoing changes and experiments. Apart from a few exceptions in the 1990s Iltnere has consistently adhered to the centuries-old medium of art – painting, but has always remained contemporary.
“Since 2007 Ieva Iltnere’s paintings have achieved their unique impressiveness, making timeless aesthetics, ornamentation and, calling things by their proper name, beauty blend into unusual combination with the documentation, irony, even social commentary of the era. Distinctive in these paintings is a rather peculiar paradox, which is not quite intellectual (meaning that any attempts to conceptualize it lead to misunderstanding of the paintings themselves), still it vaguely irritates the sense, not allowing to gain a complete confidence in the sensory organs (something always remains unnoticed even to a naive enthusiastic viewer). Feelings and sensitivity are present here, but subject to shift. Everything is perfect, however nothing is in its proper place. ” – Dr. phil. Artis Svece
“With her exquisite in form and colouration painting Ieva Iltnere’s creative work takes a significant and lasting place in the contemporary Latvian painting. Always keeping in step with the times Ieva Iltnere has never been afraid to experiment and repeatedly change her painting style. Also now in Ieva Iltnere’s painting the viewer can observe new, still being born, which will probably refine the previous notions of Ieva Iltnere’s painting in the coming years.” – Mg. Art. Ilze Žeivate
Since 1980 Ieva Iltnere has participated in more than 90 significant group exhibitions in Latvia and abroad, as well as organized 24 solo exhibitions gaining the affection of the audience with her bright individual style, which mostly embraces softened colouration and discreet intonation, a solution to current topics. Ieva Iltnere’s works enrich the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Latvian Artists Union Museum, the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey, private collections in Latvia and abroad.
