Kristina Mažeikaitė’s painting exhibition GATES TO THE GARDEN was held at Vilnius Town Hall from February 1 to 25, 2023.
The artist on her work:
“Hey, world, I’m here!” – I said while painting my first landscapes in my fifteenth year. I painted the power of growth and my breakthrough as a creator, the belief that everything is possible to create, and my struggle with the Creator.
As time passed, my landscapes became more reduced, focusing on the relationship between earth and sky. I would call it a transition into space, a desire to grasp the traces of passing time and the fundamental laws of existence. I captured that “gaze into the distance,” not expecting to discover something, not expecting anything to be different. The areas dominated by earth and sky changed in the landscapes – sometimes the earth dominated, sometimes the sky. The earth shone, burned, the sky glowed and pressed heavily.
Today, I continue my study of landscapes. Often finding color connections with the paintings of old masters, especially from the Renaissance. I continue the study as if wanting to open the earth’s crust and the layers beneath it. And also giving new meanings to the everyday image of the earth.
The earth/landscape motif has become a convenient tool for discussing relevant topics. And while the earlier works based on landscape motifs were more optimistic, full of the creator’s energy and vitality, today’s landscapes are more contemplative and apocalyptic. When painting, I increasingly think of mantras like “the earth was burning, but no one noticed,” “burning earth,” “no one’s land.” Or simply “saudade” – a silent gaze into the emptiness of the distance.
The exhibition title – Gates to the Garden – is chosen to reflect a conscious paradox – aiming to blend images of the earth as a pleasant shade, an imagined paradise, and the powerful, ownerless earth that destroys human efforts. The painted landscape horizon can accumulate radically different situations or experiences: faith, hope for a better world, or an approaching front. Through the created color codes and painting expression techniques, a calm landscape image can contain painful memories.
And the creative process itself, the creative strategy, maintains that moment of creation, as if trying to repeat the work of the Demiurge. The pursuit of non-representativeness, the use of transformation, avoidance of narrative, and study of painting traditions become a study of the earth’s structure. Thus, before you are landscapes that are forming, evolving, or already established.
About the artist:
Kristina Mažeikaitė graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts with a master’s degree in painting in 2015 (Henrik Čerapo’s studio); in 2014, she received the Ary Stillman Scholarship. Her works have been exhibited in solo shows: Niekieno žemė (Arka Gallery, 2021), Saudade (A. Mončys House-Museum, 2021), Degančios saulės namai (Pamėnkalnio Gallery, 2018), Rojaus obuoliukai (St. John’s Street Gallery, 2018), Tapytojo peizažas (Energy and Technology Museum, 2016), and others. Since 2010, she has participated in group exhibitions (over 20 group shows). She has been a member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association since 2017.
Photos – Vytas Nomadas
