IEVA MARTINAITYTĖ–MEDIODIA’S EXHIBITION “EXPULSIONS OF EVE”

IEVA MARTINAITYTĖ-MEDIODIA

Ieva Martinaitytė–Mediodia’s exhibition Expulsions of Eve presents her works formed between Vilnius and New York. The most comprehensive exhibition of Ieva’s oeuvre in Lithuania will include works from the Lewben art fondation and MO collections and the latest paintings. Her works reveal changes in the author’s worldview, from the mythological (Eve’s expulsion from Paradise) to the cosmological one, with plasmatic detritus and black holes. The emphasis is on neofuturistic, rather than retrospective view.

Ieva will not allow the viewer to enjoy paintings peacefully. Existential anxiety subsists in her artwork not only for the human, but for the worlds non-existence, as well. The underlying sense of ecological catastrophes as global warming and another world war in her semi abstractions are more real than a mere fantasy. The artist is balancing between the abstract and the figurative art. Even abstract images in her works are related to physical matter and fluid substances.

These images could be called landscapes of numerous electric discharges with an accompanying fluctuation of magnetic field and a stream of cosmic particles. The dynamics of paintings are so intensive that viewers find themselves taken to the time when the primordial matter has formed. The work has been woven out of associative forms: cable networks, virtual space, views of cities from a plane and a cobweb of blood vessels. It seems the view is being observed simultaneously – from the birds eye and through microscopic close up. The mix of the two different points of view in one painting creates the effect of cosmic vertigo. More interestingly is that the dizziness appears not only because of optic impression, but also because of the style of painting, the way paint is spread, the dripping and viscosity further strengthen the impression of the rapidly wafting flow.

I.Martinaitytė-Mediodia is interested in the ephemeral and virtual extensions of a human being: robots, the internet and cosmic probes. Physical and virtual, earthly and the worlds beyond melt into each another. The artist uses different types of media and techniques to strengthen the impression of perpetual movement, animation and even cosmic effect. ‘When I start painting and drawing, I want the canvas area to be like a movie, to make it look as if everything is moving, rotating and breathing. And it is quite difficult to do it in two dimensions. Everything you see in my works is like a map of my consciousness,’ says the artist.

Author`s maps of consciousness are also maps of the changes taking place in Lithuania. It all started with the wounded Eve from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch in the young artist’s early paintings. By now all the blood and wounds have been replaced with the vastness of the humming cosmic space and a multitude of the souls of connected users connected consumers’ souls. The physical hell has turned into virtual one, but genuine anxiety remained. Martinaitytė-Mediodia’s creative path is a contemplation of both physical and metaphysical expulsion from Heaven, Lithuania, America and possibly Earth. When we get expelled from Hell, we will become plasmatic detritus in the cosmic landscape of Ieva.

Curator Laima Kreivytė

About the author

“Inspired by neurogenesis I use continuing mark-making similar to taking notes and through this process  have envisioned a subliminal map. Thoughts and feelings passing through my mind in the form of electrochemical signaling between neuronal synapses are translated into outbursts of corresponding color and development of macro-microcosmic structures.  The intention is to make a connection between my memories – emotional, bodily and mental experiences, and the matrix of the elusive, “external” physical reality – a map/a moving field.”

Ieva Martinaitytė-Medodia was born in Kaunas. She attended the Art Gymnasium in Kaunas, and went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilnius, where she earned a MFA in painting in 1993. In her last year at the Academy, Ieva had a painting class with the New York artist Kes Zapkus.  She was a cofounder and a member of prominent art group “Good Evils” in Vilnius.  Ieva left Vilnius in 1996 to study painting at Hunter  College, New York, and earned an MFA in 2001.

Ieva Mediodia was represented by prominent New York dealer and gallery owner Annina Nosei in Chelsea New York, who showed her artwork in Europe and the US.  Artist has mounted over 14 solo exhibitions in France, Italy, Lithuania and the USA.  She has exhibited installations, drawings and paintings in international Biennials at Vilnius CAC, (Lithuania), Triennial in Iasi (Romania), International women artists show at the Scuderie Aldobrandini Museum in Italy. Her works are are in many private collections internationally including Lewben Art Foundation (Vilnius), MO museum (Vilnius).