In her first personal exhibition TRACES Agnė Juodvalkytė explores space and refers to material, as in her creative work overall. According to Berlin’s Kunstfabrik HB55 curator Kerstin Godschalk, Agnė Juodvalkytė lets the canvas speak volumes. Classically trained at the department of Painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania, her path led her from the blaze of color to discover the materiality of cloths. With a great level of respect, knowledge and sensitivity, she applies a muted palette studded with vibrant pigments. She washes, bleaches, pleats and folds the canvas. The different types of fabrics she uses are discovered on markets from all around the world or in her grandmother’s attic. The final image wears the personal backstory of each piece of cloth, thus leaving behind the two dimensional space of regular paintings.
It almost feels as if she dresses her canvas. Each cloth tells a personal story of appreciation. Agnė Juodvalkytė confidently turns outwards what usually stays hidden behind closed doors of the artist’s studio. She “embraces accident and intuition.” Curiously she sounds out the miscellaneous possibilities of painting techniques and formats of presentation. With an unstretched canvas and suffused with aesthetic sensibility and the greatest of ease she captures our attention in the twinkling of an eye.
Agnė Juodvalkytė studied Painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and visual arts in Spain (UCLM, Facultad de Bellas Artes de Cuenca). Since 2007 she has been exhibiting in Lithuania and internationally. The artist’s work has been exhibited in a number of shows including: Berlin Art Week at HB55 Kunstfabrik in Berlin, Germany (2016), Young Painter Prize at Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania (2014) , #kristallin 18 at Atelierhaus Salzamt in Linz, Austria (2015), Autumn Views in Berlin (Panke) (2014), Young Baltic Painters show in Riga, Latvia (2010). Residencies and awards: Kristiansand residency, Norway (2016), CreArt residency, Austria (2015), Young Baltic artist’s award “GlobalArtRoom”, Latvia (2010).
The exhibition is on view 20 January – 3 February, I–V 1–7 p.m.
Project space “Kabinetas”, Kaunas
Photography: Rūta Stepanovaitė