The first from a series of paintings inspired by my late grandfather’s photography collection which reveals the details of a life under Soviet occupation. Following the Soviet occupation of my home country Latvia in 1940, the next five decades were characterized by russification, sovietisation, mass deportations and overall terror. My grandfather was deported to Siberia in 1949, where he took the photo which inspired this painting. What might seem a rather happy moment at the first glance is a deception, for in reality it was the state of being in a constant daze of vodka as a desperate measure to escape the misery and pain of being stripped of one’s identity and living on a foreign land, 2000 km away from home, in horrendous conditions.

‍