Cork-Born artist Bridget Flannery has been invited by the Latvian Artists' Union to exhibit in the capital, Riga, in September. The show will travel throughout Latvia for a year and will also be seen in Lithuania and Estonia as part of the Baltic States' Year of Culture. She will show alongside artists from Germany, Denmark, Finland and America.
It's the culmination of a long-standing relationship she has with that part of the world. In 1995 she was invited to represent Ireland at the International Watercolour Symposium in Latvia, formerly part of the Soviet Union. Down the years, this annual event has hosted the work of Irish painters.
Ms Flannery recalls her first visit: "Four years after independence the country was finding its feet and everywhere we went in this beautiful state we heard stories of extreme hardship but always followed by `it will be better for our children.' "
For someone whose work is landscape-based the Latvian landscape was a revelation, with its forests of pine and silver birch, amber-coloured lakes and red oxide soil. And attending the symposium was also a learning process.
She maintained her contact with Latvia and two years ago, at the invitation of the Latvian Artists' Union, she organised an exhibition of contemporary Irish landscape painting there. It included the work of 14 artists including Maurice Desmond, Mary Mackey, Kackie Stanley and Donald Teskey. In turn a Latvian artist exhibited at the Eigse Festival in Carlow that year.
The footnote, says Ms Flannery, is that Latvians feel their history has isolated them. They want to open up to the West, to new cultural experiences. "While their work is excellent, they have an intense need to look out and to question. Sometimes I think it echoes ourselves. And if you ever want to taste beer beyond excellence, Latvian Aldus is the best," says Ms Flannery.
