Ilgvars Zalans

llgvars Zalāns is a Latvian painter and performance-based artist whose practice approaches painting as a physical and time-based event. Working with abstract painting and mixed media, he explores how gesture, rhythm, space, and memory are recorded on the painted surface. Repetitive grids, disrupted structures, and vivid color fields function as traces of movement rather than decorative motifs.

His current Border Condition project examines borders as unstable zones of tension, control, and transformation. Related bodies of work respond to experiences of place, travel, and Japanese visual culture, extending abstraction into a record of physical and spatial presence.

Zalāns has exhibited internationally, including at the Gangwon Triennale and Hongcheon Art Museum, G.ART Gallery Berlin, SCOPE Art Miami Beach, and SCOPE Art Basel. His works are held in public and private collections, including the Mark Rothko Art Centre and the Benetton Art Collection. He received Second Prize at the Velázquez International Painting Award in Shanghai in 2022.

2015-2018 University of Latvia — graduated
1988-1992 Latvian Academy of Arts — studied

2025 Jurmala Museum, Latvia
2021 Gangwon Triennale
Hongcheon Art Museum - Gangwon, South Korea
2021 G.ART gallery, Berlin, Germany
2015 SCOPE Miami Beach 2015, Miami, USA
2015 SCOPE Art Basel 2015, Basel, SWITZERLAND
2013 ArtexParte II, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA