Laura Vela

Laura Veļa uses identity and time research as inspiration for her artworks revealing contemporary anxiety and doing research on new forms and techniques. In the last years, the artist focuses on developing her own technique combining old school of painting and drawing with new media and materials. The main impulse comes from social environment, searching for own identity as a bridge from past to future. In the artworks, there are references to the influence of trauma of Soviet occupation on Latvian identity as well as to theories and mythology of quantum physics. The artist works with wide range of materials, mainly creating paintings, but also installations, video art and performances.
Laura Veļa has studied piano, Information Technology, image processing and painting. In 2017, she graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia and won a grant from the Boris and Inara Teterev Foundation for her MA studies. Since 2014, she has been participating in many group exhibitions and has had a solo show in Kalnciems Quarter Gallery (Riga). Laura Vela’s artworks are located in private collections in Latvia, the US, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

2021 - 2024 Art Academy of Latvia, professional doctorate in Arts

2017 - 2020 Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Painting, Master of Arts

2013 - 2017 Art Academy of Latvia, Department of Painting, Bachelor of Arts

SOLO exhibitions:
2024 Wounded Memory, Latvian National Museum of Art, Kupola Hall, Riga, Latvia 2022 ISO-TAPE, XO gallery, Riga, Latvia
2021 Wounded Memory, gallery “5 malunai”, Vilnius, Lithuania
2020 KEYFRAMES, Jumala City Museum, Jurmala, Latvia
2020 Nothingness, Grand Poet hotel gallery, Riga, Latvia 2020 Defragmentation of a Mind, XO gallery, Riga, Latvia 2019 Edge of Earth, Carnikava, Latvia
2017 Face. Untitled, Kalnciema Quarter Gallery, Riga, Latvia

Group exhibitions:
2024 Different personalities. Shared values. The Permanent Representation of the Republic of Latvia to the European Union, Brussels, Belgium
2023 Circle of Arts, Pinacoteca dell’Accademia di Belle Arti, Turin, Italy
2023 Don’t dream it’s over, Gallery Pallas, Tartu, Estonia
2022 A FLUID STATE OF MIND: Baltic painting in expanded field, Pamėnkalnio Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania 2022 EuroFabrique, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris, France
2021 Užutrakis Art Festival 2021, Vilnius, Lithuania
2020 Točka, Tocka cultureplace, Riga, Latvia
2019 Vilnius ArtFair 19’, Vilnius, Lithuania 2019 Emerging Lines, Berlin, Germany
2018 Brederlo-von Sengusch grant exhibition 2018 CILME, Rigas Makslas telpa, Latvia

2014 - "Will (Not) Fall", Riga, Latvia
2014 - Brederlo-von Sengusch c...