Māris Upzars

Māris Upzars is a painter of the middle generation who has worked consistently in abstract painting for many years. He holds that painting is one of the ways of searching for Truth, and that the language of colour is fit for speaking in it about the mysteries of human existence. Māris is convinced that the absence of recognisable visual motifs or objects in a painting has to be made up for by content that is particularly deeply lived, thought through and felt. Perhaps that is why his works can be called autobiographical.

The means of expression Māris Upzars favours most is the relation between fields of colour, and his sources of inspiration are nature, the people around him, the goings-on of his own soul and the culture of the World. Art historians tend to describe his painting as a meditative, romantic abstract painting.

He studied with the painter Boriss Bērziņš and completed the Monumental Painting master studio of Indulis Zariņš and Aleksejs Naumovs. Before that he studied in the Textile Art Department of the Art Academy of Latvia and graduated from the Decorative Sculpture Department of the Riga School of Applied Arts, where he gained his understanding of the basic principles of composition from Georgs Barkāns.

Works in private collections: Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Norway, the USA
The works are also held in public collections: the Museum of the Artists' Union of Latvia, the Talsi Museum, the Ventspils Museum, the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Mark Rothko Art Centre.

In the course of a year Māris Upzars makes only two or three exhibition works.