Ilona Gonsovska worked both in Moscow and in Riga, where she moved in 2005. Until her tragic death in 2008, she had a very busy artistic career - apart from painting pictures, she also illustrated books, worked as a stage designer, designed interiors and was the chief artist of the international film festival Pacific Meridian in Vladivostok, Russia. The diploma work of Ilona Gonsovska at Surikov Moscow Institute of Arts, the Scenic Design Department, was the play “Pūt, vējiņ!” by Latvian poet Janis Rainis. Sketches to this performance, which are presented at the exposition, are unique examples of the scenic design art of the painter. Her paintings reflect a special, complex and individual world of the painter, in all of its kaleidoscopic variety.
Exhibitions of Ilona Gonsovska have been held in Latvia, Russia, Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Portugal and other countries.
The current exhibition presents a whole range of paintings by Ilona Gonsovska, including wide-scale works, among which there are landscapes of Latvia, painted in her characteristic manner.
“Ilona Gonsovska is a characteristic representative of the time, which was complex in perception and interpretation, the time of a turning point and tedious waiting for something better, with very blurred images about it and extremely individual outlines,” said Mikhail Krokin, owner of Krokin Gallery. “This expectation became a self-sufficient artistic motivation. Some were purposefully struggling, others were plunging into day-dreams, which were very far from the changing and severe reality. But this vector of search and these inner constructions were actually the reality itself, with its scale of values, its landmarks, tasks, focus points and language.”
In the opinion of Mikhail Krokin, what Ilona Gonsovska was creating in her workshop could hardly be called “individual mythmaking”. It was very popular, but she did not mythologise the reality, she was just purposefully aiming towards something unknown, idealising it, wishing to plunge into this unknown world. And she succeeded in it, during her frequent travelling around the world, with exhibitions and artistic projects.
Being a real romantic, the painter combined the whole range of contradictions, which are characteristic of such persons, who have their own secret inner world. This determined her art, the range of topics and interests and was reflected in the stylistics of her works. She observed the world that existed somewhere behind the horizons of the visible world with delight and sadness, and reflected it very convincingly.
“The Return” exhibition in Rietumu Gallery will be held until 15 June.
