Anete Melece–Olivadoti

Born on 14 April 1983 in Sigulda.                                                                                                                                            

Anete Melece (since her marriage, Melece-Olivadoti) stands out within the broad landscape of Latvian children's book illustrators. Her roots lie in Latvia, in one of the most scenic regions of Vidzeme – Sigulda and Mālpils. She belongs equally to the Latvian and Swiss artistic worlds, having lived in Switzerland for the past 18 years. The artist is married to the illustrator Luigi Olivadoti. She spends winters in Zurich, balancing her work with family life, yet most of her summers pass here, in Mālpils.

Newly graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia and already based in Switzerland, Anete Melece received her first invitation from the well-known Latvian children's book publishing house Liels un mazs to illustrate the book Nepareizas dzīves skola (The School of Wrong Life, 2008) by Maira Dobele. Since then, Liels un mazs has published nearly 20 of her picture books featuring texts by Latvian poets and writers, such as Inga Gaile, Lauris Gundars, Juris Kronbergs, Rainis, Inese Zandere, and, more recently, Anete's own texts. The best known of all is Kiosks (The Kiosk), which Liels un mazs has now released three times (2019, 2022, 2024). Anete Melece's picture books regularly grace the tables of Liels un mazs at major international book fairs, where they are noticed and purchased to be translated and published in other European countries and worldwide. Today, her children's books can be read in at least 24 languages.

Anete Melece studied at Mālpils Secondary School (1989–1998) and, from the age of 10, also at Mālpils Art School. She went on to pursue glass design at Riga School of Design and Art (1998–2003), spending a year as an exchange student at Ostrava Secondary School of Art (Střední umělecká škola Ostrava), Czechia, studying photography and graphic art (2002). She then earned her Bachelor's degree at the Visual Communication Department of the Art Academy of Latvia (2003–2007). Another exchange year (2006) followed, this time in the Illustration Department of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Luzern, Switzerland). She continued her studies in Lucerne and earned a Master of Arts in Design, majoring in Animage, from Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland (2010–2012). Gifted with remarkable artistic talent and an admirable capacity to hone it through tireless work, she continues to push herself ever further.

It is hardly sufficient to say that Anete Melece illustrates children's books or invents stories and draws them as comics, or imagines, designs, and directs animated films. More precisely: she creates children's books, comics, and animated films. Anything she touches. From the first spark of an idea to its finished form. That is what makes her distinctive. Before a work can take shape, she invests long hours of thought and effort. She studies her surroundings and people, sketches and paints, gathers visual material. But most of all, it seems, she works with and within herself. She inhabits her characters, thinks and lives inside them. From the depths of her being emerge her nimble, lively visual characters, carrying stories that begin in the ordinary yet bloom, moment by moment, into something surprising and full of unexpected twists. And then comes the question: how many of these books or animated films are meant only for children, and how many speak just as clearly to adults? The characters live and act, events unfold, twist, somersault, and set off again, while the insights, realisations, and thoughts of young and grown readers or viewers stretch and expand in widening circles. They feel, and perhaps are, inexhaustible.

Such is essentially the path of Anete Melece's artistry. Take, for example, the story of how the world-famous Kiosks came to be. It began as a short animated film, a Master's thesis at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (2012). Yet the author felt she had not yet fully shown or told everything about Olga, the newspaper seller stuck – literally and figuratively – in her everyday workplace, the kiosk. Anete worked for a full year to create the seven-minute animated film Kiosks (Virage Film, Zurich, Switzerland, supported by the Latvian Culture Capital Foundation, 2013). It travelled to more than 100 film festivals and, over two years (2013–2014), received 16 different awards and recognitions. Purchased by distributors after each festival, the film reached cinema and television screens around the world and also remains readily accessible in the wilds of the internet.

Despite its success and gentle urging from Liels un mazs, Anete felt that Kiosks could not be directly adapted from an animated film into a book simply by selecting frames and text. With her characteristic warmth and humour, Anete Melece once said in an interview that she was also "busy with other projects at the time, such as having a child and being a mother." Only years later did Kiosks grow anew as a book. As always, it was first published in Latvia by Liels un mazs (2019), then presented at international book fairs, where it was purchased to be translated and published in other countries. It has now surpassed 20 languages. Its path of triumph and success mirrors that of the animated film. The book Kiosks was adapted for the stage at Latvia Puppet Theatre (2021), where it remains in the repertoire. During the pandemic, a recording was also broadcast on Latvijas Televīzija (Latvian Television). And in Düsseldorf, Germany, Junge Oper am Rhein even created and staged a children's opera inspired by Kiosks (2024).

Beyond Kiosks, Anete Melece has created several other wonderful animated films: Vilma šodien nestrādā (Vilma Is Not Working Today; 2007), Piecas kustīgas gleznas (Five Moving Paintings; 2008), and Analīzes paralīze (Analysis Paralysis, 2016), with the latter receiving six awards at international film festivals. The number of her picture books and comics in Latvian approaches 20; with translations, the count becomes difficult to keep. Not to mention her illustrations and comics published in periodicals around the world.

dPICTUS, the international platform of picture book publishers and agents, has included children's books illustrated by Anete Melece in its list of the world's 100 outstanding picture books four times (illustrations for Ceļotājs čemodāns (The Travelling Trunk, 2025) by Inese Zandere, Pazudušais miedziņš (The Lost Sleep, 2023), and Kiosks (2020 and 2021)). She has received the International Jānis Baltvilks Prize in children's literature and book art (2011 (recognition), 2019), the Excellence Award in Culture presented by Latvia's Ministry of Culture (2021); diplomas in neighbouring Estonia (2008) and Lithuania (2015), Sweden's Peter Pan Prize (2020), Italy's Premio ORBIL 2020, and many others.

With her children's book illustrations, Anete Melece has taken part in nearly 15 smaller and larger group exhibitions and major international art exhibitions. She has also held several solo exhibitions – in Ljubljana (Slovenia, 2021), and Anetes Kiosks (Anete's Kiosk) in Sigulda (2023) and in Valmiera (2024). In 2024–2025, she participated in Sveiki! Latvia (Hello! Latvia), a solo and group exhibition of original works by Latvian children's book artists (Exhibition of Original Picture Book Illustrations at the National Library for Children and Young Adults in Seoul, South Korea).                                                                                       

This biography was prepared by Rūta Muižniece,
Master of Arts