Hands, touching hands
Riga 2025
Artist: Mark Emms
Curator: Pehr Mårtens
Hands reaching out to each other. From the private album to the gallery walls. Documentary snapshots of the innermost moments of a couple. A silent movie of emotions and sensualities unfolds.
Holding hands in affection and love; clasping hands together in a common prayer securing each other; resting hands in hands in a comforting and reassuring gesture. The glance of the nail art enhances the mood of the moment.
Nails, as such, are a residual and a reminiscence of our ancestry as animals. Not any longer useful as claws to hunt for food or defend ourselves with. Now a platform for art, an intimate miniature art. And in this exhibition something much bigger.
Bella, last month, went down on her knees proposing to Mark — flipping the script — in response to him proposing a year ago. By challenging the conventions, in overturning the marriage rituals, a level playing field is created.
As a modern trickster — like a contemporary Kuma Lisa, the mischievous fox-sister in Latvian folk tales —, the move of Bella will forever change the rules of the game. Mark's photos are a tribute to her.
Artist: Mark Emms
Curator: Pehr Mårtens
Hands reaching out to each other. From the private album to the gallery walls. Documentary snapshots of the innermost moments of a couple. A silent movie of emotions and sensualities unfolds.
Holding hands in affection and love; clasping hands together in a common prayer securing each other; resting hands in hands in a comforting and reassuring gesture. The glance of the nail art enhances the mood of the moment.
Nails, as such, are a residual and a reminiscence of our ancestry as animals. Not any longer useful as claws to hunt for food or defend ourselves with. Now a platform for art, an intimate miniature art. And in this exhibition something much bigger.
Bella, last month, went down on her knees proposing to Mark — flipping the script — in response to him proposing a year ago. By challenging the conventions, in overturning the marriage rituals, a level playing field is created.
As a modern trickster — like a contemporary Kuma Lisa, the mischievous fox-sister in Latvian folk tales —, the move of Bella will forever change the rules of the game. Mark's photos are a tribute to her.
