Polina Berlin Gallery is pleased to announce Leave me where I lay, a presentation of new glass and ceramic sculptures by Latvian-born, London-based artist Karlīna Mežecka. On view from September 17 through October 24, this exhibition is organized in collaboration with Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga, Latvia, where Mežecka recently presented Stare up at me (June 18 - August 9, 2026). This marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States.

Mežecka’s sculptural practice encompasses ceramics, glass and metal. The artist’s novelle technique of joining ceramic and glass was borne out of a desire to reconcile two distinct crafts in a singular composition. The process begins with an unglazed ceramic form, manipulated directly by the artist’s hand. Glass is subsequently blown through the openings and cavities, allowing the organic shape to be guided by the curvature of the ceramic. Like the Soviet auteurs who used water to convey intimacy under censorship, Mežecka’s fluid glass forms hint at a vulnerability that has survived the ceramic’s hardened grip. The resulting marriage of materials is a product of both control and circumstance; the finished composition possesses an innate tension between what is impressionable and what is fixed.

Installed across three short lightbox plinths varying in height, the works in Leave me where I lay are intended to be viewed through a downward gaze. For closer inspection, a viewer must maneuver their body around the lightbox, towards the sculptures, bending and crouching in a dance between subject and object. At certain vantage points, the organic forms begin to embody nearly corporeal shapes—a skull, an organ, a hand, a vein—that then slip into abstraction. Plasticity and constraint are let to co-exist like a frame in a memory. In a medium that is rigid, hard and strict, Mežecka achieves a sense of flexibility and movement that is synonymous with youth and vitality. The finished sculptures oscillate between dynamism and stativity, preserving the state of transformation in which they were made.

Mežecka (b. 1995, Riga, Latvia) lives and works in London, UK. She received her MA at the Royal College of Art in Ceramics & Glass, London, UK (2022), and formerly received her BA at the Art Academy of Latvia in the Ceramics Department, Riga, LV (2020). She has had solo exhibitions at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (2026 & 2024); Low Gallery, Riga, LV (2022); and was invited by The Sculpture Quadrennial to present a commissioned installation for their 2020 edition, Triumphs of Democracy. Mežecka’s work is in the notable collections of the Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM), Eskisehir, TR; the VV Foundation, Riga, LV; the BTA Collection, Riga, LV; and the Roche Collection, Riga, LV.

Born

Riga, Latvia, 1995. Lives and works in London, UK 

Education

2022 | MA, Royal College of Art, Ceramics & Glass, London, UK
2020 | BA, Art Academy of Latvia, Ceramics Department, Riga, LV
2019 | Burg Giebichenstein School of Art & Design, Erasmus+ Exchange Program, Halle, DE

One-Person Exhibitions

• 2026 (forthcoming) with Pauls Rietums, Asni Gallery, Riga, LV
  Leave me where I lay, Polina Berlin Gallery, New York, NY (9/17-10/24)
  Stare up at me, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (6/18-8/9)

• 2024 Onsen Confidential, with Rūdolfs Štamers, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Tokyo, JP (4/7-4/21)
  Archive of Fragility, curated by Zanete Liekīte, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (1/18-2/25)

  2022 Security Patterns, with Miķelis Mūrnieks, Low Gallery, Riga, LV (1/14-3/11)

• 2020 Triumphs of Democracy, The Riga Sculpture Quadrennial, Riga, LV (9/5-10/31)

Selected Group Exhibitions

• 2026 Lieu-tenant, curated by Unu Sohn, Hypha Studios, London, UK (9/3-10/3)
  Layers, Galerija Arka, Vilnius, LT (8/21-9/26)
  Loophole, curated by Žanete Liekīte & Taeho Choi, MMCA Residency Changdong, Seoul, KR (8/5)
  RTRU*(*Raudive Technoculture Research Unit), curated by Zane Onckule, Elizabeta Alexandrovna Shneyderman, KAJE, New York, NY

• 2025 Dry Cleaning, in collaboration with Clink Street Ceramics, Max Radford Gallery, London, UK (8/18-8/24)

• 2024 Padsmit Minūtes (formative years), Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (6/12-7/7)
  Last Tale, Meno Nisas Gallery, Vilnius, LT (5/29-6/29)
  Inbound Carousel, Galleria Objets, London, UK (5/23-5/26)
  Gradient Descent, Gossamer Fog, London, UK (3/2-4/14)

• 2023 Martinsons Award, Mark Rothko Art Centre, Daugavpils, LV (9/8/2023-2/18/2024)
  Black Market 23, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (7/12-10/12)
  Asni, Asni Gallery, Riga, LV
  Decentrality dispersed in one place, Padure Manor, Padure, LV (4/1-5/1)

• 2022 Black Market III, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, LV (12/9-12/30)
  Synchronicities, Vagonu Street, Riga, LV (8/18-8/28)
  My Empty Shell, Candid Gallery, London, UK (7/7-7/10)
  Encounters, Royal College of Art, London, UK (7/25-7/30)
  Melting Pot, Wetherby Gardens, London, UK (2/16-2/26)

• 2021 Surrender, PILOT Gallery, Riga, LV (7/8-8/20)

• 2020 STOCKSCHWAMM, Galerie Handwerk , Munich, DE (1/15-2/22)

Residencies

• 2025 International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY

Art Fairs

• 2026 Esther Art Fair, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, New York, NY (5/12-5/16)

• 2024 Art Vilnius, Asni Gallery, Vilnius, LT (10/4-10/6)

Notable Collections 

Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM), Eskisehir, TR
VV Foundation, Riga, LV
BTA Collection, Riga, LV
Roche Collection Riga, LV