Artist retrospective in collie

The runner-up from last year’s Collie Art Prize is returning to the town with a huge solo exhibition of his own next month. Peteris Ciemitis has had work featured in the National Portrait Gallery, been shortlisted twice for the Archibald Prize and won the Black Swan Prize for Portraiture in 2010. His new exhibit The Past Stops Now, which launches on May 8, includes paintings and drawings dating back to 2008. Ciemitis said he was looking forward to seeing some of his favourite pieces in the same room at the same time and felt Collie was the perfect place. “I’m particularly excited by this show, it’s the first time I’ll see some of the key works I’ve produced over the last decade, together in one place myself,” he said. “Although the title The Past Stops Now refers to the retrospective nature of this exhibition, the same can be said for Collie. “In many respects the future starts now for Collie and this is one of the reasons I was inspired to hold this exhibition here.” A specialist in portraiture, Ciemitis said the art form was a chance to look internally at how people respond to changes in their life. “I have always been interested in the effects of social and technological change on our behaviours and psyches,” he said. “It wasn’t until recently that I really started to take notice of the background anxiety and stress from runaway change and that it has become commonplace in our world. “My works don’t really deal with the outward effect of these changes. “They try to examine our internal state and our loss of connection with the past.”