Māris Ernests Uldriķis “Subtle Matters”

The exhibition of pastel paintings by artist Māris Ernests Uldriķis (1939-2017.) “Subtle Matters” at Mentzendorff’s House is created in collaboration with an art historian Astrīda Rogule and with Irina Tīre, the artist from Liepāja, photographer and the friend of Māris Uldriķis. The exhibition is on view at the Exhibition Hall of Mentzendorff’s House from December 13, 2025 to January 8, 2026.

“For Uldriķis, the world of things is not important and it depends from the world of ideas. The worldview he creates is a delicate matter, conjured with intimacy and delicacy, which is so characteristic of the artist’s creative handwriting. The idea is right there alongside the matter, and it must be discovered! …What is the golden key that opens the door to Uldriķis’s creative work? How can one describe the special charm of the artist’s work?

It is subtlety, intelligence, which is the basis for a quiet, very personal and deeply interested conversation with the world, with faces, with things. It is an immersion in a ray of light, in a reflection of colors, in which the artist does not show the generosity of colors and lines for a moment, on the contrary, he captures only the essential, the necessary, the most characteristic…. Therefore, take a longer look at the works of art, and all the delicate matters and the whole world of Māris Uldriķis will be revealed to you,” invites the researcher of the artist’s work, art historian Astrīda Rogule.

Māris Ernests Uldriķis was born into the family of artist Teodors Uldriķis. In 1958, he graduated with honors from the Decorative Design Department of the Liepāja Applied Arts Secondary School. However, he did not complete his brilliantly begun studies at the Painting Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts due to his health problems.

Since 1970, his works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Riga, Liepāja, Kronstadt and St. Petersburg.

“The uniqueness and directness of Uldriķis’s artistic language create a separate dimension, a separate world, characterized by a particularly concentrated and absolute immersion in the meaning and process of creating a work of art. For Māris Uldriķis, painting and drawing was like breathing, like living. It was the only life he knew, and he knew it brilliantly. Art formed his world. Māris Uldriķis’s artworks do not belong only to his world, they are also the world of his associates and friends, and for several years also my world. Thanks to the artist’s friend and supporter Irina Tīre, an entire universe created by Uldriķis has been revealed to me,” reveals art historian Astrīda Rogule.

Māris Ernests Uldriķis artworks are in the collection of the Liepāja Museum, in the collection of the St. Petersburg State Museum and also in private collections.

Uldriķis has not given his works titles, nor has he recorded the time of their creation. Consequently, the time for creating works is the artist’s entire lifetime, but when looking at his works of art, one is given creative freedom to evoke their own associations about the message found in them.