Maija Tabaka, a Latvian Figurative Painter [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 177-180]

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KRISTINE ZVIRBULIS
be part of an evolving personal iconography-a rolled canvas or poster,
a lute and a coffee grinder. The painting is static and something in the
atmosphere reminds me of Balthus.
Following close upon this canvas are two other important group portraits-The Pop Group "The Jokers," 1970 and Morning in the Forest,
1971. The former reflects the intense interest in contemporary Western
music (as discussed in Mark Yoffe's article). The latter represents a relaxed
Bohemian (if not exactly Hippie) gathering in the woods, something for
which the Letts were noted in their days as nature worshippers. Included
in the scene are artists and designers, and the central figure models a
Latvian fabric design. One wonders if the tape recorder is giving forth
Western rock sounds or restrained folk songs played on the kokle, a traditional stringed instrument.
Maija Tabaka is consistently interested in her creative contemporaries.
In her portraits, she explores their characters and examines what unites them
in their desire to contribute to the cultural life of Latvia. The portraits
are not always flattering, but her involvement with her sitters is intense.
Technically, Maija Tabaka fully explores the possibilities of the oil
medium. She uses intense color to enhance the expressive quality of certain
works, but is as capable of subtle color combinations. She works from
the thinnest application of pigment that lets the canvas show through
to thick impasto. Her works generally have a long gestation period, lasting
from a number of months to several years. She and other 'young artists'
describe the direction they began taking in the early Seventies as the
'dramaturgy of ideas.' In this area, I fear, there was considerable Soviet
influence, emphasizing a dialectical approach to subject and composition.
Since an exhibition in September of 1975, when her works were
shown with those of three other 'young artists,' she has been acclaimed
as a new and powerful talent. Her paintings have been exhibited outside
of Latvia and in 1977 she spent a year in West Berlin. That year resulted
in a series of six dramatic canvases that reflected her reaction to the Berlin
experience. Perhaps the most visually expressive works in the series are
The Jungle, 1977, and a self-portrait, Whatis YourName?, 1977. The Jungle,
a study of Western decadence, focuses on drug dependence and its ruinous
effect on the mind and society. The group of individuals sitting at the
left, with mask-like faces, recall the work of Ensor. The colors are intense
and acid and the effect is hallucinatory, showing a no man's land that
contrasts sharply with the calm of Group Portrait of Young Artists. In
What is Your Name?, we are introduced to a colorful collage of West Berlin
impressions as the central figure of the artist explores her new environment.
In an interview with Zigurds Konstants, Maija Tabaka states: "What
would I be without my art? I don't know! Art has given me everything that I
have attained in my life." And, in addition, she has learned to work within
and around the limitations on creativity inevitable in a Soviet Socialist