Paulina Domašauskaitė (b. 2000) is a young generation artist, currently studying for a Master’s degree in painting at Vilnius Academy of Arts. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Painting in 2023, she has been actively participating in group exhibitions. Liquid Swords is the second solo exhibition of the young artist, it is curated by Linas Bliškevičius.
P. Domašauskaitė is inspired by Japanese cultural traditions, which she transforms by combining the aesthetics of the past with contemporary art forms. This gives her works a contrast and balance between strict forms and free conceptualization, inviting the viewer to reflect on themes of separation and integration. In addition to painting, the artist creates interdisciplinary works in order to further explore themes and give them a multi-layered visual fulfillment.
Paulina’s work explores the painting plane, scratches, layers, and colors, revealing the dynamism of the act of painting. Her work combines clear silhouettes and chaotic brushstrokes, inviting us to reflect on painting as a process.
According to Domašauskaitė, Japanese culture, with its simplicity of aesthetics and philosophical depth, began to fascinate her during her undergraduate studies and has become a natural source of inspiration for her work. “I became increasingly interested in woodcuts from the Edo period (1603 to 1867), where my eye was drawn to mythological themes that subtly reflected the way of life or problems of the time,” says the young artist about the influence of Japanese culture on her work.
Curator of the exhibition Linas Bliškevičius:
The title of the exhibition Liquid Swords refers to Paulina’s creative method, which consists of two oxymoronic elements. It reveals the artist’s creative method based on fluidity or free movement in local and global contexts. By combining and stylizing historical Japanese contexts, the artist creates connections with the early abstract expressionist artistic tradition, with its sharp and rigorous forms, its plots, and their negation.
The motifs that appear in the works in the exhibition are cut out of their temporal or local contexts, but the artist does not rely on decontextualization but rather on the Japanese aesthetic tradition’s concept of kire-tsuzuki (cut-continuity). Kire-tsuzuki can be defined as an act of interruption, severance, or cutting off, whereby a transformation of the original form is created. By pulling historical and cultural forms out of their natural environment, the artist creates new ways of interpreting them through contemporary eyes, not trying to overcome them as references or cultural artifacts but to recompose them into new wholes with new qualities.
By interrupting previous connotations and interpretations, P. Domašauskaitė performs a symbolic act of their destruction, which at the same time ensures new forms of their being. The juxtaposition of various sources, modes of expression, colors, textures, and contents reflects the changing cultural boundaries in contemporary art and highlights the inseparable interactions of separation and integration. This allows reflection on the multi-layered sources of knowledge that shape today’s culture.
Paulina Domašauskaitė’s exhibition Liquid Swords will be on show at Vilnius City Gallery Meno Niša until February 8. The exhibition is part of the gallery’s Open Call project of the program Art Space for Young Artists. The artist personally thanks Rokas, Kristijonas and Liucija, Monika, Kęstas, and Vita.
The exhibition is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
Vilnius City Gallery Meno Niša is sponsored by Vilnius City Municipality.
