“To touch a time that belonged to someone else,” says ceramic artist Inese Brants of the works featured in the exhibition. She continues: “I first experimented with the technical execution of embroidery motifs, interpreted as porcelain painting, in my previous exhibition at the Riga Art Nouveau Centre Museum in 2019. This time, too, the central theme of my sentimental contemplation is the transfer of embroidery onto the delicate material of porcelain.” Blue and red embroidery motifs feature on striking coffee and tea sets, plates and jugs. Pigments in matching colours are fused into the porcelain glaze, transforming these objects into remarkable works of art.

Meanwhile, painter Irīna Vorkale explores the world of women, fashion, sewing and handicraft traditions in paintings that will adorn the museum’s interiors. Her inspiration comes from a black-lacquered Singer sewing machine decorated with gold lettering, which belonged to her family and was passed down to her by her grandmother, Elza Kundziņa, a renowned seamstress. “Art is worth nothing if it is not personal, intimate and subjective,” Irīna Vorkale believes. As if opening the lid of her own traditional dowry chest, she evokes the atmosphere of an early 20th-century seamstress’s workshop in her paintings.

The two artists share an Art Nouveau-inspired interest in ornament, the beauty of materials, fashion and the world of handicrafts. In this exhibition, their distinct artistic languages come together in a moving, unified story about women, beauty and the traces left by time.

Inese Brants is one of Latvia’s best-known porcelain artists and a member of both the Artists’ Union of Latvia and the Latvian Ceramic Association. She has authored several academic articles and two books. In 2025, she received the Gold Award in the national category at the Pēteris Martinsons International Ceramics Biennale.

Irīna Vorkale is a painter, book illustrator, set designer and costume designer. She has held several solo exhibitions, and her works are held in the collections of the Museum of the Artists’ Union of Latvia, the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Cēsis Museum of History and Art, other museums, and private collections in Latvia, Sweden, the United States, Germany, France and elsewhere.

The exhibition at the Riga Art Nouveau Centre Museum will be open until 6 December 2026. The museum is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00, except Mondays.