“Pamarys Gallery of the LNMA continues its cultural mission in coastal Lithuania. In 2023, we presented the artwork by two male artists Kostas Dereškevičius and Linas Jusionis, representing different generations. This year we invite the viewer to get to know two female artists, Kazė Zimblytė and Eglė Ridikaitė appearing in an aesthetic dialogue. The works produced in different contexts open up dramatic tensions of moods, at times ringing depressive, at other times, positive notes. I invite all the locals and vacationers of Neringa to get to feel these contrasts of moods and to introduce variety of aesthetic experience into their summer”, Skaistė Marčienė, director of Pranas Domšaitis Gallery and head of Pamario Gallery, says.
The avant-garde idiom of Kazė Zimblytė
The exhibition Abstractions: Between Moods and the World by the pioneer of abstract painting in Lithuania Zimblytė invite the viewer to revisit the unique language of abstract art. The painter’s creative ideas resulted in diverse, in terms of composition, works, created in dark or light colours on canvas, paper or cardboard in oils, watercolour or gouache. She also used the technique of collage and assemblage where she glued pieces and layers of cloth, paper, leather, gold sheet on a support to evoke her emotional states of mind.
Extreme contrasts of visual solutions in her works revel her unique world of visions, the realm of loneliness, not without some hints of material reality as well. The artist explores the dimension of space as a means of impact, too. The colour fields at the edges of canvas grow or recede in intensity and darkness; the glittering or polished paper sheets attached in the corners of pictures optically expand the physical space of the works. Paper mounted on canvas creates the impression of a fragile membrane, which like butterfly’s wings, is affected by time, dust and physical impact.
Recent works by Eglė Ridikaitė – a growing diary of Ukraine
The constantly growing series Between by Eglė Ridikaitė documents the emotional and psychological states, reflections and personal experiences in response to the war against Ukraine. The main protagonist of the series is light. In most recent pieces by the female artist light assumes a dual meaning – both of an illusionary hope that nothing has changed and of a painful realization of dismal remains of the broken world.
The paintings, which initially dispose as positive, playful, replete with dreamy everyday atmosphere, appear to also harbour tension, fear and withdrawal. They evoke a state between the past and present time, between secure peace and anxiety of the unknown and fear. This dualism creates the mood of a surreal dream which has a direct impact on the viewer’s subconscious.
The works in the series is a diary of the war, which is both strange as well as our own, which we involuntary fight in our minds and hearts. It registers the “in-between” states of unrelenting suspense and anxious inward stillness. Ridikaitė writes this diary in her own way, using the graffiti technique, which strikes as so adequate to the reality of the barricades in Ukraine, the exposed cavities of bombed houses, still holding remnants of life that used to be.
The exhibitions at Pamario Gallery of the LNMA will be accompanied, throughout summer, by the educational programme created by the museum’s educators and restorers and tailored for children, families and adults.
Pamario Gallery in Juodkrantė originated as a former Museum of Miniature Art. In 2019, it took its current name and has since put together a number of events, received positively by culture professionals and art lovers. These were solo events of Vidas Pinkevičius (1949–2012), Nomeda Saukienė (b. 1957), Linas Julijonas Jankus (1946–2014), Jūratė Stauskaitė (b. 1947) and the exhibitions The Storm and The Watchmaker. From the late autumn till the early spring the gallery ran the project Migrating Museum, which invited to sampling sessions of art and food.
Eglė Ridikaitė Between
Curator: Algė Gudaitytė
Coordinator: Aurelija Malinauskaitė
Designer: Loreta Uzdraitė
Supported by Neringa Municipality
Abstractions by Kazė Zimblytė: Between Moods and the World
Curator: Nijolė Nevčesauskienė
Coordinator: Aurelija Malinauskaitė
Exhibition architect: Ieva Glumac
Designer: Loreta Uzdraitė
Supported by Neringa Municipality
