OSKARS PAULINS is an artist from Riga who has been working with light since he was 18. He has worked as a lighting designer in all Latvian theatres, as well as at the Latvian National Opera, the Song and Dance Festival, concert halls, outdoor events, and various other venues. He has also worked at the Helikon Opera, Pushkin Theatre, Gogol Centre, Mayakovsky Theatre, Lyon Opera, Athens Epidaurus Festival, and on other international stages.
At present, his professional résumé includes more than 100 productions, and his contributions to other types of projects are just as numerous. He studied lighting design in specialized courses in Saint Petersburg and London but considers his most important teacher to be the renowned Latvian lighting artist Igor Kapustin.
Oskars Pauliņš has been nominated for the Latvian theatre award Spēlmaņu Nakts multiple times and has won four times (for the 2013/2014, 2015/2016, 2017/2018, and 2018/2019 seasons). At the Eventex competition, the concert 100 Latvijas stāsti 100 minūtēs (100 Latvian Stories in 100 Minutes) was recognized as the world’s best event of 2018. Most recently, Opernwelt magazine awarded The Queen of Spades at the Lyon Opera Festival 2024, for which Oskars designed the lighting, as the Show of the Year 2024.
At the Latvian National Opera, he has designed the lighting for the opera productions I Played, I Danced, Le Villi, Gianni Schicchi, The Rake’s Progress, The Flying Dutchman, Simon Boccanegra, and La Cenerentola.