Fairy Land

Fairy land exists! That was my conclusion after we visited the art nouveau museum in Riga. In one of the buildings in Riga’s famous Alberta iela, one apartment has been restored and furnished to show how people might have lived there in the early 20th century.

In the salon, where the owners would have received visitors, there was a tea corner that struck me immediately as we walked in. I had never been in such a space – so pure and elegant, like it would immediately calm the soul. How wonderful it would be to have a cup of tea there! (Taiwanese green tea, of course.)

Sadly it was cordoned off, and visitors were not allowed to come close, and certainly not allowed to sit down. By painting it, I tried to make the space mine. I put our favourite mug and tea cup in the picture, like I was living there.

I feel like art nouveau has created an imagination world, a fairy land that is somehow holy and beautiful. In that short period of time around the turn of the century, the movement was all over the world. It feels like a scenery where fairies would live, and I want to believe that fairy tales are a real thing. There’s a fairy hidden there, can you find it?

The colours of the painting were inspired by a tile I saw in the art nouveau store before we visited the museum: ivory yellow, sky blue, vibrant green. Such an elegant, beautiful combination. I then saw the colour scheme back in the museum and I was getting ready to spend tons of money on buying tiles until I learned that they were not from Latvia at all, but made in Berlin, so I decided I did not have to weigh down my suitcase with them.

I hope this painting gets noticed by the Rigas Jugendstila Centrs! If you’d like to make a postcard out of it, just let me know hahaha

Something a bit old, but the ideas are still new