Parodos
EXPOSITION OF FOUR AUTHORS AT KCCC ART YARD
Creative work exhibitions of four artists – KCCC art residents Irma Leščinskaitė, Toma Šlimaitė, Žaneta Jasaitytė-Bessonova and Juozapas Kalnius – are presented in the workshop windows of Klaipėda Culture Communication Center‘s (KCCC) Art Yard.
As the quarantine slowly retreats and the residents of the city return to the streets, KCCC invites you to expand your walking trajectories and visit the Art Yard. Additional value to this attractive space is given not only by the reconstruction of one of the most important cultural heritage objects of Klaipėda Old Town – the half-timbered (Fachwerk) building complex – but also by the opportunity of non-binding acquaintance with art.
According to Ignas Kazakevičius, the director of KCCC, the creative experiments accompanying the authors Klaipėda’s four residents Žaneta Jasaitytė-Bessonova, Juozapas Kalnius, Irma Leščinskaitė and Toma Šlimaitė-Bubelienė throughout their entire residency are currently presented in the Art Yard workshops. ‘Usually, art residents help KCCC to implement educational activities. However, during the quarantine, they had the opportunity to spend more time implementing new ideas, reflecting on future exhibitions and revising the old archive. The works of T. Šlimaitė-Bubelienė and J. Kalnius are created with specific techniques. Unfortunately, sunlight harms these works, therefore they will only be exhibited for two weeks. I. Leščinskaitė and Ž. Jasaitytė will exhibit their creative works until the middle of June’, says the director encouraging not to miss exhibitions.
IRMA LEŠČINSKAITĖ’S “ABSTRACT MICRO-WORLDS”
Painter Irma Leščinskaitė with her project ‘Abstract Micro-worlds’ seeks to draw attention to the prevailing current events in the life of society: preservation of the natural living environment, cultural traditions, harmonious personal and social relations of people; emphasis is placed on human’s relationship with the natural and cultural world and with oneself, a priori affirming that everyone is creative enough to start and nurture such a relationship. The author also emphasizes respect for classical painting, the significance of the realities of represented cultural objects or historical persons in order to make them meaningful, bring them closer and make them understandable to the modern viewer. This is how the micro-worlds are created in the works, in which new categories of abstraction gain specificity.
Irma Leščinskaitė (born in 1970) studied painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, acquired Bachelor of Arts, Master’s and Art Licentiate degrees. In 1996 she did an internship in Austria with artists Nancy Spero and Leon Golub. She is a member of Lithuanian Artists’ Association, Docent of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Klaipėda Faculty and she has been granted the status of art creator. The author has organized 31 personal exhibitions, participated in 104 joint paintings exhibitions, art projects: in Lithuania, Austria, USA, Italy, Russia, Iceland, Switzerland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Latvia. The artist was given art scholarships of George Soros, Kunstlerhaus Lukas, Lithuanian Council for Culture and Klaipeda city municipality.
TOMA ŠLIMAITĖ’S “UNEARTHLY CHILDREN AT THE SEASIDE”
Toma Šlimaitė’s latest graphic cycle ‘Unearthly Children at the Seaside’ (2020) extends the artist’s intuitive and personal creative line. The main characters – children, who have dominated in the author’s works for the last five years, this time are performed using graphic techniques: dry needle, etching and are transfered to the seaside space. The unearthly atmosphere of the seaside is conveyed by the means of artistic expression – paper that is painted in author‘s technique, fragmented marine landscapes and objects freely scattered in the space, which create a rebellious, chaotic and at the same time melancholic mood while interacting with each other. In the series ‘Unearthly Children at the Seaside’, the main characters of the creative works experience different emotions and moods: the exulting joy intertwines here with seriousness and torpidity. The author sees children as extraordinary creatures, perhaps aliens from another planet, disguising their strangeness with childish innocence. In this way, very personal and physical experiences turn into a metaphysical state of a distant planet, connecting “there” and “here”.
Toma Šlimaitė-Bubelienė (born in 1985) graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2010 with a Master’s degree in Graphic Arts. In 2007, she studied at the ‘Accademia Di Belle Arti Di Urbino’ in Italy under the European Student Exchange Program ‘Erasmus’, later she underwent a traineeship at the Helnaes Hojskole Art Studio in Denmark. Since 2006, the artist has organized 10 personal exhibitions, participated in more than 20 group exhibitions in Lithuania, France, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Armenia and Japan, international art projects in Lithuania and Italy. She is a member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association since 2018 and she has been granted the status of an art creator.
ŽANETA JASAITYTĖ-BESSONOVA’S “IN THE MIDDLE OF FOREST”
Through her creative works, the artist seems to pay tribute to the forest, which plays an important part in her life. According to the author, our daily life is inseparable from transformation: we run, roll, do not keep up and devote ourselves to the society around us after exhausting our last strength. In order to recover, we must submerge our body and soul into the cradle of nature – the forest. In a philosophical sense, we can interpret the word ‘forest’ as a human relationship between our inner world and outer social life: do we feel peaceful in the environment around us? Or maybe we are fighting like beasts for survival? A forest for an artist is a place where she can have some time alone in the way she wants. She can stroke the moss without asking permission, touch the trees, press herself close to them, hug them, lie down and listen to their whisper…
Žaneta Jasaitytė-Bessonova (born in 1980) graduated from Šiauliai University with a Master’s degree in Graphics. While still studying, she was improving herself at the ESAD School of Design in Portugal. Since 2001, the artist has been actively participating in personal and group exhibitions, international art projects, art residencies and creative symposiums. In 2007, Ž. Jasaitytė – Bessonova became the winner of the Young Artists’ Art and Cultural Creators Award, in 2010 she was awarded the Prize for Young Artists. Since 2009 – a member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association. She cooperates with the ‘Serpente Gallery’ in Porto, Portugal.
“SEA BEHIND THE FENCE” BY JUOZAPAS KALNIUS
Klaipeda port has been carrying out the process of separation of the city from water since the World War II. The port industry is being developed in the very center of Klaipeda, completely ignoring the possibility of lifting dirty cargo and opening new corridors to the lagoon. According to the author, the photography project ‘Sea Behind the Fence’ aims to show the long-lasting silent, but now increasingly visible and audible confrontation between the city and the port, paying special attention to the borders, fences and the images these fences are covering. To capture the objects, the photographer uses the salt print technique, for which the Baltic Sea water and silver nitrate are used.
Juozapas Kalnius (born in 1971) studied at the Faculty of Light Industry of Kaunas Polytechnic Institute. He is a member of the Lithuanian Photographers Association. He has been participating in exhibitions since 2009, has organized seven solo exhibitions and his works have been exhibited in many group exhibitions and symposiums. The arsenal of the artist’s creative expressions includes digital and forgotten old technologies: cyanotype, pinhole, lumen prints, salt prints, etc.
Exhibitions of KCCC art residents are exhibited in the workshop windows of KCCC Art Yard (Bažnyčių Str. 4, Klaipėda). Entrance – through the main gate (from the side of the Museum of the History of Lithuania Minor) on weekdays from 9 am to 5 pm.