PLMC

The Surrealism of Pēteris Kārkliņš
22.11.2025–10.05.2026
Sīpoliņa Gallery

In the small, hermetic drawings of Pēteris Kārkliņš, one encounters unsettling currents that move just beneath the surface of human experience.

The intricate complexity of his organic forms parallels the artist’s meticulous working method: on the reverse of each sheet, he carefully notes the time, place, and conditions under which the drawing was created. These visceral images appear fluid and mutable, at times even ominous; together with the sparse, matter-of-fact annotations that accompany them, they form an intense and concentrated meditation on the passage of time and the inevitability of mortality.

Pēteris Kārkliņš was born in 1945 in Frankfurt an der Oder, East Germany, and emigrated with his family to Chicago in 1951. There, he studied painting, copperplate engraving, and sculpture. He worked for many years as an architectural model maker. When that profession yielded to the rise of digital modeling, he turned to night-shift security work to support his artistic practice. The drawings presented in this exhibition were created during this period—on commuter trains to and from work, and at his post during long, solitary nights.

Latvian diaspora artists have often gravitated toward nostalgia and themes of displacement, or the avant-garde movements of their adopted homes. Kārkliņš’s work, however, sits outside such categories. His drawings are so distinctive and self-contained that they resist placement within any geographic or historical narrative. Following, in part, the lineage of Max Ernst and Mark Tobey—while delving deeply into the subconscious and the unfathomable forces of the natural world that modern civilization prefers to keep at arm’s length—Kārkliņš has forged a singular, one-man artistic movement. His practice is defined by an eerie and compelling visual language, an unconventional creative process, and a personal value system through which he articulates his haunting vision of beauty.

Kārkliņš has been exhibited in the United States, and his work has drawn the attention of several prominent contemporary thinkers. This exhibition marks the first presentation of his drawings in Latvia.

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Upcoming