The portfolio page for solo exhibitions and projects such as installations, performances and other.
New Forest
New Forest mural painting in Karkle, Klaipeda County, Lithuania
Created in a form of performative painting as a part of Karkle 2019 festival.
The motive position is perfectly fitted to the location and direction of the sun – tree shadows fall North in the midday sun.
Music For The Plants
2019 07 06 @ EMEM Art Fest, Trakų Vokės manor
Performance duration: 1 hour 50 minutes
According to Masaru Emoto’s findings on experiments with water, the water molecules change their structure depending on the emotion that the sound brings. It was noticed that high frequency emotions in sounds, for instance “I love you, thank you” and classical music, create complex and symmetrical crystals, whereas water affected by low frequencies (die, idiot, etc.) looses it’s crystal structure and becomes similar to mud puddles. Having in mind that all earthly organisms are liquid-based, the experiment findings confirm the importance of high frequency emotions for growth and development. Singing and talking to the plants now looks logical.
The piece is performed in an empty orangery in Traku Vokės manor. The performer is sitting in the middle of an orangery, facing the park behind windows and is making sound with the Cello or playing impromtu. The doors of orangery are closed but not locked. Movement in orangery is not forbidden nor encouraged.
Music for the Plants is music for the memory of plants, as an expression of nostalgia and expression of faith. The orangery itself creates imaginary visuals of its past when it was full of exotic flora. The artist aims to create an environment of these imaginary memories of orangery, perform music and emit high frequency sounds, as an expression of love to the creation, stimulate the growth of plants and their development and at the same time, to stimulate her own development. This aspect makes the artist and the spectator to near proximity with the plant or the memory of the plant, the plant or the memory of plant can be experienced thought the comprehension of own finite fragility.
Archive Sitting
Supermarket 2019, April 4 – 7, Stockholm
‘Archive Sitting’ was performed by Rūta Matulevičiūtė during Supermarket 2019 Stockholm Independent Art Fair[1], as a part of BiteVilnius[2], a project by Marija Griniuk
BiteVilnius Archive Librarian interaction as Active Sitting. (Closed eyes) observation of the environment and communication with readers in a silent performance. The Librarian is an observing object who is being observed; most likely in a meditative state or trying to reach it, the Archive Readers then can decide how they should respond to this form of communication, they are free to join meditation, to observe the Librarian, to enjoy the Archive while being observed, ever feeling the presence of the Activelly Sitting Librarian.
Archive Sitting was performed four days in a row, each day for an hour.
[2] http://www.bitevilnius.nu/
[1] https://www.supermarketartfair.com/
Wisdom Vendor
2019 January, Solo exhibition of single interactive installation @ Pamenkalnio gallery, Vilnius
Wisdom Vendor is a project that merges the legacy of ancient cultures and traditions with contemporary world-views. An interactive installation, in which the Android system is used, works as a divination mechanism, based on The Chinese Book of Changes, and its first translation into English (by Richard Wilhelm) that reached the West. At the very centre of the gallery a black view-reflecting cube with automatic answer generating system is installed. This is a symbol of the holistic world-view. Being a divination machine, the installation refers to XXth century psychology‘s term of individuation process – the eternal journey to the Self. The installation embodies multilayered and miscellaneous significations. The goal is to reach the deepest aspects of existence and humanity.
The Android program is created by Francisco Roberto Becerra Bravo.
SPHERE
2018 May, Solo exhibition @ Gallery THE ROOM, Vilnius
Ruta Matuleviciute‘s exhibition SPHERE teleports us to the forest. Her precise painting manner and mastery convinces the mind that we have entered Nature‘s sanctuary. The author identifies the strict following of rationality only as a barrier, a boundary that doesn‘t allow to constantly see anew or from a different perspective. Therefore, it is not strange that Ruta‘s creation is so atmospheric and sense based.
It seems we can hear the rustling leaves and tree branch swaying with swings tied to it. A mystical light shines in the Park. The souls of trees beam through the bark. This scene slowly dissolves and turns into a wall still remembering and latently holding the reminiscence of it. A window or an opened picture hangs in the wall turned into a winter tale. The deer wading in snow cinematographically turns back and plants his wise gaze. But for Ruta‘s paintings, the narrative is not characteristic. The miscellany of multiple symbols and hints of potential stories, possible interpretations, not delusive, but of a mysterious and vast forest. To not go astray in this forest, one has to follow the flowing poetry of artworks‘ titles.
Matuleviciute‘s paintings give scent of resin, crunches with snow, creeks with branches. There is dramatic tension, uneasy waiting, the unknown. But all of that is followed and surrounded as if in a sphere, by a peculiar and unexpected cosiness. A pictorial harmony is being built of chaos. In a cold colored painting warmth burns. Everything is subtle, ephemeric, and at the same time – everlasting. This ambivalent effect, perhaps, is created by the author‘s magical realism, full of symbolic accents. Here is a royal well, once more repeats the image of a circle haunting the author‘s creation. This is the coherence with the concept of a sphere, femininity and spirituality symbol and the echo of the most archetypal image which is the Circle of Life.
The painters‘ creation is based on individually seeing and interpreteting the most foundational images of the collective unconscious. The author reads philosophical works non-stop, studies Micea Eliades books on mythology, studies the written works of psychoanalytics as she considers the unconscious the most important guidance of life and creation. She is most fond of theories and concepts of C. G. Jung, whose works linked her to studies of alchemy and various religions She is also very aware of shamanic thought, magical thinking (works by G. Mažeikis). She finds the corelations between the Eastern and Western philosophy as well as pagan wisdom, which gives a versatile world-view.
However, the author does not seek to dissociate from the matter and shut in an intelectual hermitage. So Bambi sticks out his tongue and reminds us about the temporal existence and the illusion of omniscience. But it is not a cynical statement, but rather an encouragement to open the eyes more wide and see the magic in everyday life. This artist follows the holistic views, where everything is one. Seeing her visionary paintings we too without noticing become more sensitive to the environment. In this case – the art and it‘s perception.
Art critic Austeja Mikuckytė-Mateikiene
