Estere Betija Grāvere

03.09.2022

Estere Betija Grāvere (1996, Riga) is a young artist who works with drawing and various printmaking techniques. In recent years Grāvere has focused on transforming the medium of printmaking into a broader, more contemporary format, reinterpreting its habitual static nature in different ways.

Grāvere holds a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Graphic Arts at the Art Academy of Latvia, and studied for one year at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp through the Erasmus Programme. Currently she is pursuing her MA studies at the Visual Communication Department at the Art Academy of Latvia.

In 2020 she had her first solo exhibition at the Look gallery.

***

DUNES BEYOND THE DUNE

“As long as the winds blow, the rivers flow and their waves roll the sea, new and new masses of sand will float out of the earth and, like living creatures, will wander in all directions. Sand knows no rest.”
The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe

The size of a grain of sand is just large enough to easily move. When just one grain, one-eighth of a millimetre in size, gets into your shoe, it can really grate on your nerves – sometimes to the point of chafing your foot until it bleeds. By studying the shapes of grains of sand, you can explore their peculiar lives – how far they have travelled to where they now find themselves. The more regular the shape, the longer the journey, which can be hundreds of thousands of kilometres.

In this series of 17 works, sand has become the symbol of the work’s communication, but the truth contained in this work of art cannot be specifically identified. With this series I tried to evoke something forgotten but worth remembering.

Sand has become the symbol of communication in this series of 17 works, but the truth contained in this work of art cannot be specifically identified. With this series I have tried to evoke something forgotten but worth remembering.

Adenia. Monotypy, 96 x 65 cm