Once, self-portraits were the most immediate, simplest, and most affordable form of visual expression of thought, offering many creators – especially women – the opportunity to study and create, as the subject knows themselves best and is always at hand. In an environment where expressions of identity and selfhood are constructed, falsified, and multiplied at an uncontrollable speed and scale, it is precisely the self-portrait that allows one to reflect on personal boundaries.
In her works, Marta Vosyliūtė peels away layer after layer, slicing through anxious existential moments with the scissors of social peripeteia. Here, a Mary emerging from a romantic painting gazes at the sky with tearful eyes, awaiting grace – yet the title of the work reveals the merciless plan she harbors. The heroine refuses to kiss the dead, and so neither a full nor an empty shopping bag bearing The Rolling Stones lips logo and the motif of Čiurlionis’ “Serenity” brings any comfort. The Sports Palace gleams with grandeur while attempting to escape political manipulation, and amid endless holidays among palm trees one longs to fall into a sweet sleep and never wake up.
MARTA VOSYLIŪTĖ (b. 1976) is a scenographer, painter, and culture critic active in the field of Lithuanian modern and contemporary art. Her artistic practice consistently explores the cognitive dissonance permeating both lived experience and cultural narratives, processes, and stereotypes. Vosyliūtė’s works often operate as reflections on the art system itself: the unmistakable interplay of image and text, together with her background in theatre, enables her to employ the media most suited to each idea – whether it be watercolours hung like laundry, video films, or visual diaries accompanying narrated stories. Notably, in 2014, Pamėnkalnio Gallery hosted her watercolor series in which she curated a collection of her favorite artworks, allowing Lithuanian and global artifacts to coexist and respond to one another.
Marta’s solo exhibitions include My Calendar at Vilnius City Hall (2023), When Expensive Becomes Cheap, When Cheap Becomes Expensive at the Vilnius Photography Gallery (2023), Cutting the Diagonal at the SODAS 2123 complex (2022), A Feast of Textiles, or Second-Hand Culture in Lithuania at the Museum of Church Heritage (2017), My Vilnius at the Umiastowski Palace (2015), The History of Lithuanian Art in Pictures at Pamėnkalnio Gallery (2014), and Cult at the Vilnius Railway Station (2010).
Guided tours with the artist will take place on December 16 and 23 at 5:30 PM, or by appointment: openmindedmarta@gmail.com
Organiser: Pamėnkalnio Gallery.
Curator: Skaidra Trilupaitytė.
Architect: Darius Baliukevičius.
With thanks to: Indrė Šidlauskaitė, Andrius, Anelė, Artūras, Aidas.
The project is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture. The exhibition is part of the program celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association.
More information: www.pamenkalnio.lt, www.marta.lt
