LATVIA – EXHIBITION
Francesca Quirke’s exhibitions in recent years are imbued with fragility and danger – to human life or to the work of art. The work of art and the concept of time – creation and destruction.

At a time when the devastation caused by artistic vandalism and war is erupting in the world, in her latest exhibition Deconstructing Beauty Francesca Quirke looks with deep awe at Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna Litta in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum (St Petersburg, Russia). Drawing parallels to the fragile theme of mother and child and the events in Ukraine.
«My exhibition opens just before Christmas. It is not safe for Mary and the child this winter in Ukraine… a lot of Marys and children…», says Francesca Kirke.
Franceska Kirke (1953) graduated from the painting department of the Latvian Academy of Art (1978) and the professional workshop of Eduards Kalniņš (1987). Her most notable recent exhibitions are Trauslums/Fragile (2019, Art Museum of the Riga Stock Exchange, Riga, Latvia), Bez fetish (2019, Rūmenes muiža, Kandava, Latvia), Somebody (2017, Art XO Gallery, Riga, Latvia). Francesca Kirke’s works are in public collections: the Latvian National Museum of Art and the Museum of the Union of Artists (Riga, Latvia), the Ludwig Museum (Cologne, Germany), the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, Russia), the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA).
MĀKSLA XO GALERIJA
Elizabetes iela 14, Rīga, LV 1010, Latvija
Tel. +371 29482098
www.makslaxogalerija.lv
info@makslaxogalerija.lv
*In Madonna’s cloak, the blue ultramarine colour symbolises purity and innocence as well as royalty. Red represents the blood and sacrifices of Christ.