Liva Vilemsone
Liva Vilemsone is an oil painter from Latvia based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. She discovered her passion for art at a young age studying at Ventspils Art School, but did not discover oil painting until after graduating from university as a printed textile designer. She was introduced to oils by textile designer and oil painter Hester Tatnell, after having met at a textiles internship in London.
Liva further pursued oil painting with subsequent courses at the Milan Art Institute and experimenting in her own time. Even while studying textile design, Liva was more interested in drawing and painting.
As her art progressed, Liva realised that oil painting was the medium which allowed her to best express her creativity and essentially what made her decide to pursue painting as a career.
Liva’s use of dark vivid colours creates mysterious imaginary worlds and embraces dreamlike states in order to express a desire for escapism from the urban world. Inspired by the beauty of unusual things in nature, her work is characterised by bold brushstrokes; blending botany seamlessly into unique compositions which typically feature birds, reptiles, insects and mammals. Bridging the gap between living creatures and the intangible concepts of the subconscious, Liva likes to contrast dark and light, in order to represent standing on the edge of the threshold between wake and sleep.
"In the process of creating my paintings, I follow my gut feeling and capture my subconscious by putting intense emotion into my brushstrokes so that I can convey both the energy of the subject and the euphoria and deep connection I feel when I paint to the viewer. "