Pamestā zeme. 1969

Guntis Strupulis made this 140 x 140 cm painting titled "Pamestā zeme" and you can almost feel the hours he must have spent layering those greens and blues, coaxing out the subtle drama of the sky. There’s something lonely about that chair plopped in the middle of nowhere, right? I wonder what Strupulis was thinking, did he see the chair as a symbol of something? A forgotten moment? Or maybe it was just a formal challenge, a way to play with light and shadow in an otherwise desolate landscape. Look at how the light streams down, not quite touching the chair. It’s like he’s inviting us to fill in the blanks, to bring our own stories to the canvas. He is in conversation with the early surrealists and the symbolists. That chair might as well be from Magritte, or maybe Delvaux. Painting can be such a trip, a way to get lost and found all at once.