The project, funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, featured Ieva Mediodia’s exhibition “Physical Analogues / From New York to 90s Vilnius.” The project comprised three exhibitions: “Uploaded Memory,” “Physical Analogues / From New York to 90s Vilnius,” and “Immigration into the Digital Age / New York 2001–2019.” These were held at Vilnius Town Hall, Trivium Gallery, and Šiauliai Art Gallery, providing a comprehensive look at the dynamic twists in the artist’s creative career. This exhibition cycle vividly highlights Mediodia’s uniqueness within the context of Lithuanian painting and outlines her artistic trajectory in the history of contemporary Lithuanian art.
Exhibition Description:
We can only speculate how the development of Lithuanian art might have unfolded if the legendary “Good Evil” group members had remained in Lithuania. The current project combines the dramatic elements of Vilnius and New York, creating an intercultural space of life and creativity filled with unfinished stories and unexpected life turns. After many years, fragments of these stories seek to be integrated into a whole, even if imaginary. Various attempts are made to understand this group’s phenomenon and to retrospectively reconstruct its now imaginary history.
Ieva Mediodia’s exhibition addresses this archeological need perfectly. First, she is a rarely seen artist in Lithuania. Second, the exhibition presents works created both at home and abroad. Third, it provides a great opportunity to compare the artist’s Lithuanian period with her New York discoveries and current trends in Lithuanian painting. This helps reconstruct the sense of continuity in art development that had been interrupted.
Ieva Mediodia is not just a participant in “Good Evil”; she is an innovator in painting and an active representative of the New York art scene. Her work reflects significant post-Soviet Lithuanian art shifts, from modernist painting transformations to feminist, tactile diaries of her unique technique. Her strong emotional expression and scientific discourse later synthesize into translucent, radioactive-colored objects embodying the present sensations.
Such painting has been lacking in the Lithuanian context since the “Good Evil” era. Mediodia’s ability to combine cosmic distances with neural flashes, nervous linear drawings with detailed architecture, and geometric schemes with spontaneous pours demands a unique brushstroke calligraphy, unexpected pauses, smooth surfaces, and translucent structures. This generative painting principle creates a plethora of fantastic figures and an expansion of intense brushstrokes, vivid colors, and penetrating lines through the interaction of chance and logic.
In this virtual space, there are no references to the earthly world governed by the laws of gravity and somber colors. Instead, it features the dynamic of a violently beautiful explosion, a festive dance of inter-neuronal connections, and graceful synaptic choreography. Therefore, the artist’s works are provocatively stimulating, pushing viewers into the unknown and avoiding direct interpretation. They represent a space of intoxicating experiences, possible only in the face of a horizon approaching at the speed of light and exploding in the optical nerve congestion. Thus, it is fascinating to observe Ieva’s efforts to visually reflect neurogenesis processes, connect them with virtual worlds, and draw impossible maps.
Curator and Text Author: Virginijus Kinčinaitis
The Exhibition Was Funded By: Lithuanian Council for Culture
