Anita Arbidane: Eroticism and the Medieval Imagination

The paintings of the contemporary professional painter and jewellery designer Anita Arbidane (born and based in Riga, Latvia) capture the female nude in the intriguing territory between the sensual and the symbolic. At first glance, her figures appear to belong to the tradition of the idealised female nude: pale bodies, luminous skin, carefully arranged hair, flowers, fruit and animals, all rendered with an almost jewel-like precision. Yet the paintings resist being understood simply as erotic images. Their eroticism is closely tied to allegory, art history, mortality and the strange theatricality of desire. In this respect, Arbidane’s work can be understood as a contemporary continuation of an older European tradition in which beauty is never merely beauty and sensual pleasure is inseparable from questions of temptation, transience and death.

Fig.1  Anita Arbidane

Fig.2  Anita Arbidane

Magical Realism

Arbidane’s own words reveal us the inspiration behind her art: “My artistic quest is based on an enduring interest in a realistic painting style combined with symbolism, some also call it magical realism. (…) Visions, ideas, composition and color – these are the things that drive my process. In my works, I try to reveal the true nature of the painted objects, and sincerity is the quality that, in my opinion, gives true value to a good painting.”

Arbidane uses the term magical realism. This combination of Realism, Renaissance art infused with vibrant imagination is crucial to understanding the paintings that are presented here. The technical language Arbidane uses is fundamentally classical: the human body is observed and constructed with academic discipline, while the objects surrounding it operate as symbolic interruptions to ordinary reality.

Fig.3   Anita Arbidane, Prima Vera, 2018

Fig.4  Anita Arbidane, Three Graces

No Exaggerated Seduction

The painting seen in Fig.1. is exemplary of this technique. A nude woman is siting before a plate of cherries, holding one fruit delicately between her fingers and another at her lips. Her expression is strangely restrained. There is no overt theatricality or exaggerated seduction. Instead, the erotic charge comes from the tension between her immaculate, almost porcelain-like body and the abundance of fruit, flowers, insects and animals surrounding her. The cherry becomes particularly potent. It is simultaneously food, ornament, object of temptation and bodily metaphor. The gesture of bringing it to the mouth transforms an apparently innocent act of eating into something charged with sensuality. This seems to be one of Arbidane’s most distinctive art strategies: she makes desire operate through objects. Food, flowers, animals and the body become part of the same visual vocabulary. The woman does not simply exist within a still life; she almost becomes another element of it. Her body is presented with the same attention as the cherries, petals, insects and metallic vessels. Yet this apparent aesthetic harmony is unsettling. The viewer is encouraged to contemplate beauty while simultaneously being reminded that beauty is temporary and consumable.

Fig.5  Anita Arbidane, Gifts of Nature, 2011

Fig.6  Anita Arbidane, Lucretia, 2016

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