Artist Arvils Linde holds a Master's degree in painting from the Latvian Academy of Arts, as well as a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Fashion Design. After creating several fashion collections, he has been actively working in the field of visual arts for the past seven years and has rapidly gained recognition, focusing on illustration, painting and sculpture. With each new exhibition, the artist's goal is to keep breaking down the boundaries between these disciplines, merging them into a single whole, and thus creating his own unique world. Magical realism and the themes of mythology and folklore are prominent motifs in the majority of the artist’s projects. 

 

The artist's approach to figurative objects includes his characteristic combination of stylisation, borrowed from the fashion industry, combined with classical fine arts and applied painting and drawing techniques. Linde's work often features figurative compositions of abstract elements confronted with each other, serving as a means of reflecting the various aspects of human existence and its relationship with the Universe.

 

“The Wishing Apparatus” dissects the concept through the relationships of the story's main characters. The narrative blurs the boundaries between dreams, desires, and the tangible world. It centers around mysterious, mythologically archetypal beings that cross dimensions and spaces, symbolizing escapism and transformation, which includes the search for a new beginning and desires that must be fulfilled. In unity with nature, the crown of deer antlers, symbolising renewal, and the unicorn horn, which has magical, healing properties, are the source of power for these characters, granting them the ability to materialise desires.

 

“The Wishing Apparatus” navigates through a world where realities overlap, deconstruct and reconstruct, and asks questions about when a goal is achieved, when desires are fulfilled, when a work of art is completed, and whether such a process has an end mark.