How Latvian artist Arta Raituma paints with fire

Memory Sea, a large painting on display at the Kashi Art Gallery in Fort Kochi, features a grey convex curve and a deep brownish-black rectangle, evoking the image of a giant cloud poised to burst over a deep ocean. The work initially draws the viewer towards it through its deceptive simplicity, but what makes it truly fascinating is that it has been painted with fire. ‘The Kochi-Muziris Biennale needs a self-analysis,’ says curator Nikhil Chopra storyline 1 Latvian artist Arta Raituma, in her first solo show in India, Dark Flame Streams Bright, showcases how she uses fire as a medium to express her deepest artistic impulses.

Memory Sea, she says, is an ode to the Baltic sea, beside which she spent her childhood. “I work a lot with memories of landscapes. I used to go swimming in the Baltic sea and it had dark waters – a curious mix of green and brown.

It is so immense and I felt deeply drawn to it. It is a combination of fear and a feeling of awe,” she says. When she did the work while in Portugal, she was thinking of home,” says Arta.