Opening of Jolanta Mikulskytė’s exhibition “Beyond the Surface”

On Friday 16 January at 17.30, the graphic artist Jolanta Mikulskytė’s exhibition “Beyond the Surface” opens at the Exhibition Hall of the Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre (KCCC). It reveals the underwater states the artist has been exploring for a number of years: changes in pressure, fauna, biology, artefacts. Here underwater imagery has been turned into large-format lithographs reflecting how, under the action of the water element, a person’s self-awareness, sense of the world and whole being change. The exhibition runs until 15 February.

The title of the exhibition also points to global changes and to the situation of war, but the most important things here remain beneath the (water’s) surface. According to the artist, it seems that these days there is no longer any lukewarm state — only cold or hot, black or white.

Underwater imagery, the mapping of images and perhaps also a geography of states were collected throughout the pandemic period as a method of surviving, and now of hiding — and, again, of surviving. Lithography* is an inseparable part of this artistic investigation. It embodies a slow process and conveys a state of meditation while arranging the fragments of this strange and uncertain time of ours.

Lithography, as a method of drawing, is suited to this: porous limestone is an organic natural medium that accepts a greasy drawing and, of course, water — without water there is no lithography. Lithography is a slow process, a conceptually fitting form of expression for this time, for stopping the moment, for survival, for meditation.

The exhibition also presents the series of prints “Only You can thing for Yourself” (2025–2026), which is still being made.

Jolanta Mikulskytė (b. 1979) is a graphic artist. In 2006 she graduated in graphic art from the Vilnius Academy of Arts (1997–2006). She has held solo exhibitions in Lithuania. Since 2006 she has taken part in creative traineeships, educational programmes and exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad.

Since 2007 she has taught at the Department of Graphic Art of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and since 2025 she has been a professor there. She works in the field of printmaking; over the past several years she has used the lithographic technique exclusively in her work and promotes it by leading creative workshops.

We invite you to the exhibition opening on Friday 16 January at 17.30 at the KCCC Exhibition Hall.

* Lithography (litho- + Gr. graphō — I write) is a planographic printmaking technique. Its basis is the lithographic stone (limestone). The printing elements are drawn on the surface of the stone with a greasy pencil, crayons or lithographic ink, and then etched with gum arabic and with mixtures of gum and acid of varying strength. Lithography today combines different media and broader forms of expression: dry lithography (algraphy), offset lithography, photolithography and various combinations — polyester lithography + stone, aluminium plate lithography and so on. The range of expression is extremely wide: drawing, pourings of ink, colourfulness, photography, montages, different degrees of grain and so on.

Organiser: the Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre

Partner: the Vilnius Academy of Arts

Opening hours of the KCCC Exhibition Hall (Didžioji Vandens g. 2, Klaipėda): Wednesday–Sunday 11.00–19.00 (closed on public holidays). Photographs and video will be taken during the exhibition opening. Please note that participants may appear in photographs and video recordings of the event published in various media.