Latvian British artist, based in London, UK
jolantabasova.art@gmail.com
My practice grows from an anthropological curiosity about systems — how they behave when forced outside the conditions they were built for. I work across sculpture, installation, drawing, needlework, AI tools, and digital communication infrastructures — at the intersection of material culture, language, and technology. I am interested in the conundrum between functionality and dysfunctionality — when a system is operational and the transfer is still incomplete. It is a hybrid practice. That displacement is not incidental. It is the methodology. I am interested in what persists when things pass through systems that were never built to hold them — and what that persistence costs.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
2023 — Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, UK — Spinogriz II, sold
2022 - shortlisted for The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2022, London, UK
2019 - shortlisted for Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, London, UK
2016 - Mona Hatoum Bursaries, UAL, UK, London
2011 - Boriss Bērziņš scholarship in the drawing, Riga, Latvia
RESEARCH AND INDEPENDENT PROJECTS:
2026 – in process “The unicorn went to lunch after the herald stepped down”
2025– in process “A bottle for Superheroes who forgot their lines”
2024 “Hey, you’re OK mate? (Bus Stop for Übermensch, Comrades, and Watchtower for Pigeons)
2021 – in process “Wonder Boy: How to Kill a Childhood Dragon”
2020 – in process I “Spynogryz for Thin-Skinned Ones Near the Lake”, “Halo Halo, I Have Bug”
2018 "What Can We Make and Become", Exposed Arts Projects [art based research], curated by Sasha Burkhanova-Khabadze, UK, London;
2014 Independent research “Family tree”
2014 – 2015 “Palsy +Pronunciation” - independent research of withdrawn items in the library in Latvian Center in Munster, Germany
2014 ”Back into room” - independent research while studying in Kunstakademie Munster and in collaboration with Latvian Center in Munster, Munster, Germany with solo exhibition https://laikraksts.com/raksti/rakstsFoto.php?kuraFoto=8022&KursRaksts=4123
SOLO SHOWS:
Apple fell far far away..., ASC project space, London, UK, 2023
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
“Shouldna | Couldna | Wouldna” On Bad Ideas and Other Decisions 2020 – 2026, Swedenborg House, London, UK; 2026
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023, London, UK, 2023
Bad Ideas Collective, Tallinn Art Hall, Tallin, Estonia, 2022, https://www.badideascollective.com/
The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 22, London and over UK venues, 2022
The First Edition, BadIdeasCollective.com, platform/Five Years, London; 2020
"What Can We Make and Become", Exposed Arts Projects, curated by Sasha Burkhanova-Khabadze, UK, London; 2018
The London Open 2018, part of Video presentation, London, UK; 2018
"Visual Poetry", Black Stone Gallery, Chengdu, China; 2017
"Plymouth Contemporary 2017", Peninsula Art Gallery and KARST, Plymouth, UK; 2017
"Expanded City", Hoxton Basement gallery, London, UK; 2017
“Somehow you and I Collide", Central Saint Martins, MA Interim show, MangleLondon, UK; 2017
"Big Space", UAL, Central Saint Martins, London, UK; 2016
”Back into room” - independent anthropological research while studying in Kunstakademie Munster and in collaboration with Latvian Center in Munster, Munster, Germany, 2014
“SEB scholarship in painting”, Art Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia; 2012
“Brīdinājums/ Warning”, gallery “L”, Riga, Latvia; 2012
“SEB scholarship in painting”, Art Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia; 2011
“Brederlo-von Sengbusch Art Award 2010”, Art Academy of Latvia, Riga, Latvia; 2010
EDUCATION:
2021–2023 MA Certificate, Library and Information Science (Digital Library & Information Services), University of Boras, Sweden
2016 - 2018 UAL, Central Saint Martins, MA Fine Art, London, UK
2010 - 2014 Art Academy of Latvia, The Faculty of Visual Arts, Department of Painting, B.A.
2013 Kunstakademie Munster, Germany, Prof. Julia Schmidt atelier, painting class (ERASMUS)
2002 - 2005 Latvian Academy of Culture; Cultural Theory and History of Culture, Cultural Theory and management program, B.A.