VIKTORIJA BULAVA - STATEMENT

Viktorija Bulava’s career began as a child prodigy. She started her formal art studies at the age of 12 when she was selected in a country wide competition as one of a dozen students admitted to the Rozentals School of Art in Riga. She was selected for her first solo art exhibit by the end of her first year. As the young art student Viktorija Bulava received multiple awards, the most notable was the Soviet Union preeminent art school juried competition prize devoted to the subject of “October Revolution”.

Continuing her studies at the Art Academy of Latvia she earned the highest monthly government stipend. She was selected as the best student of year 1995 by International Art Association B13. The Latvian Cultural Foundation also awarded her with cash price for a significant contribution in Latvian art in the same year. In 1996 she participated in the world wide competition “Earth and Water” organized by UNESCO Center of Visual Art in France. Her fine arts training in Riga, Latvia culminated in a Master of Fine Arts degree awarded by the Art Academy of Latvia in 1996, and Sipolins Foundation the best graduate of the year grant in 1997, which sponsored her first trip to Florida in 1998 for a one-man show at the Latvian Cultural Center in Saint Petersburg, Florida. The appreciation of her paintings led to Viktorija Bulava’s introduction to the galleries in United States. The quality of her work is attested by its inclusion in the collections of noted collectors in Canada, Europe and United States: Citadelle Foundation museum in Texas, Les Masson De Art collection in Sarasota. Through her art Viktorija Bulava introduces the viewer to new appreciation of nude presentation and interprets figures as a glimpse of motion and sensuality that delights and engages her audience. Her Eastern European background blends the Western European influence of Riga, the “Little Paris of the Thirties” with it’s preeminent Art Nouveau style and post World War II Soviet realism with the strong classical training.