RIGA.- Juris Dimiters’ solo exhibition The Curtain’s Peek-a-boo is on show in the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga. The solo exhibition, which is conceived as a retrospective of the artist’s more than 40 years of creative activity, presents the viewer with almost 350 works.

Juris Dimiters can be considered one of the most original Latvian artists working in a surrealist style, with a specific set of images and painterly technique. The exhibition presents a part of several series of works, which contain everyday objects and fruits and their irreal combinations, painted with distinctive attention and documentary precision. Alogical scenes – unfamiliar stagings of the most common objects are, in essence, Juris Dimiters’ creative commentary on the relationships among the individual, society and power, as well as between humans – especially a man and a woman.

In order to release the viewer’s imagination, unexpectedness and surprise are very important for Juris Dimiters. Therefore, the artist often uses such means of expression as paradox, wit, humour, irony, metaphor. The element of surprise is ensured by the emphasis on form and volume of the subjects involved in this “theatre of things”, deconstructing the traditional perceptions on the surrounding environment, scale and their true size. It is characteristic for the artist to depict the same objects multiple times. In order to provide insight in the success of the interpretations of the same subjects and images in different media, the exhibition separately groups drawings, paintings, posters, scenography, photography as well as sketches, which show the initial phase of the creation of many ideas and images.

The curtain that Juris Dimiters designed for the legendary production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes at the Daile Theatre has been placed at the centre of the exposition. Hence, the curtain in this solo exhibition has become a metaphor for the artist’s oeuvre in general, in order to reveal other, less known creative aspects of this vivid personality. The artist’s black and white photographs documenting the face of the city are definitely among these, and will certainly be another revelation of this personal exhibition.

The exhibition includes works from the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvian Artists’ Union Museum, Latvian Fire Fighting Museum, Daile Theatre, Zuzāns family, Guntis Belēvičs, Edgars Jaunups, as well as works belonging to the artist.

Juris Dimiters was born on 15 October 1947 in Riga in the family of painter Džemma Skulme and actor Artūrs Dimiters. He is a member of the renowned Skulme family in the third generation – the artist’s grandparents are painter Oto Skulme (1889–1967) and sculptress Marta Liepiņa-Skulme (1890–1962).

Juris Dimiters graduated from Janis Rozentāls’ Riga Art Highschool (1965) and the Department of Stage Design at the Art Academy of Latvia (1973). Since the end of the 1960s, the artist has been equally active in several fields – painting, scenography, graphic art, posters, photography. He has participated in more than 200 group exhibitions in Latvia and abroad, where Juris Dimiters is best known for his posters. Artist has held 20 personal exhibitions.

Juris Dimiters is a member of the Latvian Artists’ Union since 1975. He has created scenography for the National Theatre of Latvia, the Valmiera Drama Theatre and the Daile Theatre, where the legendary Kārlis Auškāps’ productions – Ādolfs Alunāns’ play John Neuland and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes – have become golden classics in theatre of the second half of the 20th century.

The artist’s works are held in the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, the future Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art, Latvian Artists’ Union Museum, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Cremona Foundation Inc., Maryland, New Orleans Museum of Art, Nancy and Norton Dodge Collection, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, as well as private collections in Latvia, USA, Russia, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere.