Aija Mūrniece (1937) is an experienced artist of Riga Porcelain Factory who mostly designed porcelain paintings on custom made decorative objects as well as industrially made and mass-produced ones. The artist’s strength or trademark are her underglaze paintings which is one of the most complicated porcelain painting techniques as it imposes high professional virtuosity.
Aija Mūrniece can be considered a pure gem in Latvian ceramics. She started painting led by huge interest and, naturally, found herself in Riga Porcelain Factory. There the first thing she acquired was the capricious, but picturesque underglaze technique that allows for both experimenting and finding a “softer” aesthetical language. The most popular underglaze paint is cobalt which has been used for creating most of the pieces in the exhibition by combining them with a golden decoration. The combination of cobalt and gold is a classical, almost iconic, way of decorating porcelain and here it is used for several groups of objects. What regards designing the forms of china, she has created just a few as she has specialized in painting and decal designs. The motifs she uses are mostly related to the plant and animal kingdom. Along with the work at Riga Porcelain Factory Mūrniece has also graduated from the Ceramics Department of the Art Academy of Latvia. She willingly expresses her creativity through other art media as well, thus the exhibition, along with the porcelain paintings, also features the tapestry designed by the artist.