This spring, we welcome two artists from Latvia – Helsinki-based Inga Meldere and Riga-based Zane Hanele Putniņa – whose works engage in a dialogue of shared themes and artistic exploration. Initiated in 2021, COUPLING is an expanding series of curatorial projects, collaborations, or pairings, where two artists / practitioners are introduced to one another for the first time and exhibit together based on shared concerns within their work.

The arch of the space at PUBLICS becomes a site for layered storytelling. Inspired by the historic technique of sgraffito – a decorative technique of scratching through a surface to reveal underlying colours – Inga Meldere’s in-situ intervention Analogue Mark Making unfolds as both a material and conceptual work of revealing. The work references the micro-histories embedded within the building, from its construction in 1922 alongside traces of the present. 

Through these overlapping presences – historical, digital, and material – the work explores the impermanence of surfaces: uncovered layers of paint, period-specific color variations, the composition structures of Finnish Ryijy rugs, smileys, and visualizations of emoji text art from 1990s video game aesthetics and early Nokia phones. The painted poodle playfully nods to the legacy of General Idea, bridging this Coupling exhibition with the previous show, while some characters reappear from the painted game Avium Aquae (Aquatic Bird), nesting on the other side of the exhibition space. 

From Under The Bed is a series of eight new linocut prints by Hanele Zane Putniņa. Under the bed – it is a place where linocut printing plates accumulate. Over time, the pile grows larger and becomes difficult to move. The linocuts leave their sticky color prints on the floor. Some of them have arrived at PUBLICS, carrying their images, stories and events.

Most of the works reference two series the artist has previously created. Both can be fully viewed in two catalogues available in the space. One comes from Hanele Zane Putniņa’s solo exhibition Exhibit According to Description. The other – Catalogue – is an artwork printed in book format. Both series share a common principle of interpretation – a practice where someone else’s work is perceived and reinterpreted. For Exhibit, the works were created from descriptions found on collection inventory cards at the Latvian National Museum of Art. For Catalogue, the works were inspired by visits to five group exhibitions in the Monumental Café series that took place at the Elephant Hall of the Riga Circus.

The limited edition poster Avium Aquare, commissioned by PUBLICS as part of the COUPLING  exhibition, is also available to purchase.

Artist BIOS

Inga Meldere (b. 1979) lives and works in Helsinki and is a Master of Fine Arts in the field of Painting. Between 2013 and 2014, Meldere was a researcher at Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, Netherlands. In her practice, she emphasises painting as a performative tool and looks at it as an expanded field. Meldere works with cross- disciplinary, innovative, and speculative approaches within conservation and contemporary art. Her practice explores the traces of impermanence, dealing with questions around authenticity, social history, and the exploration of micro-histories.

Meldere’s recent exhibitions include ‘Sunpoles’ together with Luīze Nežberte, KIM?, Riga (2024), ‘Brethwork’, Pech, Vienna, Austria (2024), ‘Bluetooth (Sister N.)’, Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn (2022); ‘Hidden matter’ with Mikko Hintz, Helsinki Contemporary (2019); She has participated in various group exhibitions, including ‘The Same Sea’, Helsinki Biennial (2021); ‘There and Back Again – Contemporary art from Baltic Sea region’, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2018 – 2019).

Hanele Zane Putniņa (b. 1990) lives and works in Riga. Hanele’s graphic works are mostly based on mythological characters from folklore and legends, which the artist often recreates in large-format linocut. These imposing compositions of cosmologic images mix with depictions of the absurd found in modest everyday situations, which she sometimes calls ‘Bruegels’.

Hanele is interested in historic printmaking techniques and all that surrounds them. The artist continues her journey in the world of the linocut, taking the biggest possible gouges and striving to find treasures among the linoleum’s shavings. She is rapidly approaching her first hectare carved in linoleum.

Since the release of her large-format book ‘Smurgulis un Īscaurule’ [The Brat and the Branch-Pipe] in 2012, Hanele Zane Putniņa has established her underground publishing house Rakete in Riga. The connection between printmaking techniques and books is so striking that, when the night comes, she retires to her press to put together a few layouts.