Cow of the Laumes, 2025
Acrylic, oil paints (mixed media)
In my final artistic research project “Laumės Are Everywhere”, I explore the image of Laumės – mythological beings from Lithuanian folklore – and their transformation into a contemporary visual form. My goal is to portray Laumės not as distant mythic figures, but as living, breathing presences that speak to my inner world. At the same time, I wish to open a path for them into our present – to let them experience the 21st century, the life of a modern woman, and my own reality. It is a two-way journey: I move towards them, and they move towards me. In this project, mythology intertwines with childhood memories. I never expected that Laumės would bring me a sense of inner calm and curiosity – yet they became a way to remember what truly matters to me: who I was when nothing else mattered, when the outside world had no hold over me. The journey of Laumės was driven by a wish to return to my childhood. I do not mean childhood as an age or a number, but as a place or a feeling. As a child, I was only outdoors – I swam in lakes, helped my grandfather in the garden, constantly went to the chicken coop and visited the chickens, went to the forest to shoot a bow that my grandfather had made, went to the fields with my grandmother to gather herbs, the whole family went to the sauna, I ran to the forest and sang to the trees so that they would grow leaves faster, because I wanted summer to come sooner. As a child, I loved Lithuanian traditional culture – national clothes and folk songs. I loved Lithuanian holidays and how special, exceptional we made them. From Midsummer to Mardi Gras, I felt a little flutter, which, after singing the sutartinės (singing when another person sings a few seconds later than you, on top of your singing), turned into some unfamiliar, but even more special feeling. Laumės remind me of this feeling.
