How Latvian artist Arta Raituma paints with fire

Memory Sea, a large painting on display at the Kashi Art Gallery in Fort Kochi, features a grey convex curve and a deep brownish-black rectangle, evoking the image of a giant cloud poised to burst over a deep ocean. The work initially draws the viewer towards it through its deceptive simplicity, but what makes it truly fascinating is that it has been painted with fire.

Latvian artist Arta Raituma, in her first solo show in India, Dark Flame Streams Bright, showcases how she uses fire as a medium to express her deepest artistic impulses. Memory Sea, she says, is an ode to the Baltic sea, beside which she spent her childhood.

“I work a lot with memories of landscapes. I used to go swimming in the Baltic sea and it had dark waters – a curious mix of green and brown. It is so immense and I felt deeply drawn to it. It is a combination of fear and a feeling of awe,” she says.

When she did the work while in Portugal, she was thinking of home,” says Arta. Having developed her own techniques in the past five years, Arta uses fire with remarkable skill and the results are breathtakingly beautiful portraits of landscapes and forms in brown, sepia, grey and black.

Arta has always felt pulled towards fire, a reason why she started experimenting with the element in her work. It was a break from her standard practice in oil paint. While initially, she would combine fire with oil paint, she later began to create entire canvases painted in fire.

“Fire holds a sacred role in the indigenous traditions and rituals of Baltic culture. Fire appears in our folklore, we celebrate the summer solstice, we build large bonfires during the time. The sun and fire are powerful symbols that show our deeper connection with Nature,” she says.

She breaks down the process: A wooden surface, ideally plywood, is burnt with various flammable or heat-conveying agents, such as matches, candles or pyrography tools. This produces textures in a range of gray and brown shades, or even fine, at times relief-like details.

The unpredictability of it excites her. “I work in layers, glazing with flames. Working with fire makes me let go of the sense of control. I let the element guide me and go along with it. It is something I cannot erase, so I have to adapt and go along,” says Arta.

She works on multiple pieces at the same time. While her core medium is wood burning, Arta often combines painting and organic materials as complementary elements for on-site installations. She incorporates photography and performance too.

Arta always knew she wanted to be an artist. Having done her BA and MA in painting from the Art Academy of Latvia, graduating in 2021, she has hosted numerous solo exhibitions across Europe. She also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.

She engages in creative placemaking, working with communities and investigating the fragility of relationships and interactions between natural and urban environments and their inhabitants. She was part of Kochi-Muziris Biennale’s ABC Art Room in 2026.

Arta’s works are included in private and public collections in Europe, USA, Turkey and India. The works on show at Kashi Art Gallery are from several series she made between 2021 and 2026 – created in Portugal and Latvia.

Some of the larger works on view were created in Kochi, where she moved after her marriage to cinematographer Prem Jyothis. “Showing these works in Fort Kochi is special because these works were born in Portugal and Latvia and they carry the residue of other shores, and now they meet a place where histories have arrived by sea and settled in layers,” she says.

Dark Flame Streams Bright is on till November 30 at Kashi Art Gallery.