Velga Lukaža

Velga Lukaza’s handmade small pieces of tapestry cannot be classified by their belonging to a well-defined time. They are contemporary indeed and nevertheless full of past. With her hands of Latvian artist she is playing a subtle game between past and present, without beginning or end. A sign arises from another one and both interlace in an ideal composition.
Men’s figures have always been the characteristic features of Velga Lukaza’s artistic space; they travel form one work to another one, holding something timeless, detached of the prose of daily life. We can recognize the independent woman of the 21st century and the woman dressed with a silk gown in the 19th style who had recited Baudelaire’s verses to her lover.
Seduced by the charm of Velga Lukaza’s work, we are listening, without knowing it, sounds of a precious harpsichord or of some instruments of ancient music which create a mysterious atmosphere, as a natural background. Velga Lukaza’s art is full of poetry and lyricism. It recalls the urban civilization values of sentimental life and the fragile world of the artistic spirit.
At the beginning of her career, the artist had created large tapestries with many characters where the element of the play was constantly present. Its interest for the stage was obvious in her final study work at the Latvian Academy of Fine Arts “Theatrical subject” which is presently at the Daile theatre. Meanwhile she was fascinated by the format of the mini-textile which started to blossom in the last decade and which has been encouraged by a stroke of good fortune, her cooperation with the Museum Jean Lurçat and of contemporary Tapestry of Angers, France. The artist was inspired by contacts with the French, the French culture and literature; she discovered a new facet of her art.
Velga Lukaza gathers skillfully a mixing of materials in one unique work: linen, silk, wood, pearls complement one another and, then, another combination of signs and materials is no longer imaginable. But, it is the graphic line which provides the central accent and through which the artist gives her narrative. There are two elements which Velga Lukaza cannot dispense with: golden color which characterizes the icons and the lyric French texts. With her history, the artist puts together signs form different periods whereas she creates something new and unique.
The space of world culture is rich of inspiration if one lives with open heart and eyes.

Diana Barcevska, Art historian