🟤 On August 27, 2026, at 6:00 PM, the Creativity Centre “Prãgiedruliai” will open the exhibition ”Žagata” by Latvian painter Katrīna Levāne.
About the Artist
Katrīna Levāne is a Latvian painter based in Riga.
In her practice, she works with themes of unpleasant yet necessary topics by giving them a physical space to inhabit. This place usually exists between mythology and real life experiences turned into folk tales. Often working with installation elements combined with a more traditional landscape painting approach, she creates artworks that surround the viewer and, in turn, make the viewer part of the narrative.
Katrīna graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia in 2025 with a Bachelor’s degree in Painting. She has received international awards, including the NOBA 2025 Baltic Young Artist Award Grand Prix, as well as an Honorable Mention and the Public Choice Award at the Young Painters Prize 2025. Katrīna has participated in exhibitions in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy, and Germany.
About the Exhibition
“If I were a magpie, I would pick up all the shimmery reflections on the water's surface and put them in my pockets till my wings would be too drenched to fly.”
”Žagata” is the Latvian word for a magpie - a bird often associated with liking shiny things, stealing them, and bringing them to their nests. In Latvian folklore, magpies are the harbingers of news. Sometimes used as a derogatory term for a woman who likes to gossip. For me, it has always been an endearing word. When I was little, my mom used to call me žagata, because I got completely hypnotised by any shiny thing I saw. I used to collect sea glass and sequins in my pockets, lighters taken from others and never given back, and rings with the shiniest gems. From a young age I learned how to fall in love with almost anything I saw - the skyline, broken glass, glum November evenings; all of it could be wonderful if I choose to see it that way, and I did.
As the magpie is an expert at finding every wonderful thing, it also takes it with her. The urge to collect, to store away a fleeting form of happiness for later turns into hoarding. The wings become heavy, the things - a form of self-soothing. At some point, your pockets just become too full of everything you love. It’s the snowdrops on the side of the road, fish scales shimmering at the local market, thick fog rolling over fields on your way to work, my father's multichrome sunglasses that I always borrow. It’s always there, right next to the feeling of complete helplessness.
This exhibition emphasises the shininess in the mundane, the subjective conditioning of the self for small doses of happiness, which only we are able to feed to ourselves. The slow and systematic habit of collecting from the world around us and sometimes letting it to consume us.
🟤 Exhibition Opening August 27, 2026, 6:00 PM
Creativity Centre ”Prãgiedruliai”
Ukmergės St. 59A, Panevėžys, Lithuania
Exhibition on view until September 27, 2026.
🟤 Free admission