All these works are thematically united by impressions that the artist has got from the last century black-and-white magazines and books with sentimental scenes “from gods’ lives”. The funny charm of these old, kitschy illustrations has inspired the artist to create the series titled “Private Mythology”. The artist has found links between these impressions and current topicalities, projecting ancient Greek and Roman myths against the contemporary background. She has retained irony and grotesque typical of her works, for example, the painting Diana and Logo features rabbit head logos from the Playboy magazine, the painting Ganymede and Eagle – the airplane of Greek Airlines. The artist has used also her favourite look of cracked surface in the work Etna, resembling the effect of volcano smoke. Frančeska Kirke’s presents an interesting variation of the theme of Aphrodite: the artist transforms the myth and offers to the spectators her own version – Aphrodite with a dislocated ankle.
Looking at the painting Icarus, at first one cannot find the main protagonist. As did the Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel several centuries ago, the artist moves Icarus to the background; nobody in the foreground notices his falling or worries about it, being involved in everyday trifles and relaxed talking.
Motifs and images from the classical mythology – Venus, Ganymede, Centaur, Diana, Icarus, etc. – are consistently represented in “black-and-white” or sepia-mode tonal painting.
Frančeska Kirke has a significant place on the scene of Latvian painting. The artist has actively participated in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad already since 1974.
In 2002 Frančeska Kirke’s solo exhibition “Museum” was on view at the State Museum of Art; she has held several solo shows at Mimi Ferzt Gallery in New York (2000, 2002). The latest solo exhibition “Disappearing” was on view at Riga Gallery in 2003.
Frančeska Kirke’s painting is typified by the artist’s specific interpretation of relationships between time and art. She is interested in both contemporary art language and visual culture of past eras. The artist freely navigates systems of intellectual and visual signs, creates quotations from cultural history and uses them to mirror the particular version of culture typical of the present. Kirke blends traditional means of painting, compositional principles, colours and textures with the post-modernist view of the world.
Frančeska Kirke’s works are found in the collections of Latvian National Art Museum, Artists’ Union of Latvia Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey as well as in private collections in Latvia and abroad. |
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FRANCESKA KIRKE. Ikar
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Ganimed and Eagle
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Aphrodite With Disjointed Ankle
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Diana and Logo
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Narcissus
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Hurried
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Etna
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