Original Paintings

Artistic Exploration in

Ceramics & Sculpture

Artist Biography

Laura Vecmane (b. 1982, Talsi, Latvia) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, ceramics, sculpture, photography, and environmental art. Her work is rooted in a deep relationship with the land — its materials, its colours, and its quiet presence.

Education and early years

Laura studied painting at the Art Academy of Latvia, earning her Bachelor’s degree in 2008 and Master’s degree in 2012. During her studies, she expanded her artistic language through exchanges in Spain (University of Castilla-La Mancha, 2006– 2007) and Denmark (Vraa Højskole, 2009), where she explored analog photography and the interplay between image and material. Earlier, she studied icon painting, altar art, and graphics at the Latvian Christian Academy (2002–2004) — an experience that shaped her sensitivity to sacred space and contemplative form.

Her graduation work was awarded the Vilhelms Purvītis Scholarship for the best Bachelor’s thesis at the Art Academy of Latvia, and in the same year she received the Ludolfs Liberts Scholarship in Painting and the Grand Prix of the Alberts Foundation for her painting Wooden Architecture in Riga.

Australia: clay, land, and belonging

In 2013, Laura moved to Australia, where she spent fourteen years developing her practice in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. This period was transformative. The Australian landscape — its ancient earth, its radiant light, its vast silence — drew her toward clay and sculpture as primary means of expression.

She undertook mentorships with sculptor Janna Pameijer (2020–2022) and participated in artist residencies at the Butter Factory Arts Centre in Cooroy (2021) and the “Floating Land biennale” (2019), where she worked with ephemeral art and land-based practice under the guidance of Leonie Barton and Shona Wilson.

The presence of Indigenous Australian culture profoundly shaped her understanding of land not as scenery but as living material — as story, as memory, as ancestor. This shift is at the heart of her current work.

Her work in Australia was recognised with the Major Prize at “Sculpture on the Edge” (2018), Second Prize (2019), finalist positions in the “Obi Obi Art Award” (2017) and the “Local Artist Local Content” exhibition (2016, 2021, 2022), and multiple Arts Queensland grants for professional development, mentorship, and collaborative projects.

Return to Latvia: the earth speaks

Since 2023, Laura has been living in Gulbene, in the heart of Vidzeme. Here, surrounded by forests, rivers, and bogs, she has returned to the landscape of her childhood — but with new eyes and new hands.

She co-founded the ceramics community “Tālava Clayworkers", bringing together local makers to explore traditional and contemporary ceramic practices. In 2025, she led the project “Tālava Clayworkers: Promoting Traditional and Contemporary Knowledge in the Gulbene Region Ceramics Community”, supported by the Vidzeme Historical Lands Cultural Programme.

Today, clay has found its way into her painting. Laura creates landscapes using earth pigments sourced from specific locations across the Gulbene region — riverbanks, ponds, roadsides and field margins as well as natural clay paints from other places in Latvia and Estonia. Her paintings often carry the colour of a particular place. The earth becomes both medium and subject, material and memory.

Her solo exhibition “Still Earth” (2026) presented these clay paintings for the first time, and her intention to continue exploring painting with clay through project “The River Runs into the Sky”, deepening this exploration through the motif of water and the landscapes it shapes.

Selected exhibitions and recognition

Laura’s work has been exhibited in Latvia, Australia, Lithuania, Denmark, Scotland, England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Recent solo exhibitions include “Still Earth” (2026, Lejasciems), “A Different Landscape” (2025, Plungė, Lithuania), and “Peace and Symmetry” (2025, Gulbene). She has received two VKKF Creative Fellowships (2024) and continues to develop her practice at the intersection of painting, ceramics, and the living landscape.

Laura Vecmane currently lives and works in Gulbene, Latvia and Maleny, Queensland.