Latvian artist Sabīne Vernere’s solo exhibition Bestiaries opens on June 18, 2025 at 6PM, at the Gallery of the Lithuanian Artists’ Union (Dailininkų sąjungos galerija, Vokiečių g. 2), Vilnius. Presented within the framework of the “Medūza” programme, it marks the artist’s debut in Lithuania and is curated by Žanete Liekīte.
In her latest exhibition Sabīne Vernere explores female sexuality as a historically politicized space, shaped by regional narratives of fear and control. Bestiaries draws on medieval compendiums of beasts to trace how cultural anxieties attach to female bodies. Womanhood is presented as a site of ambiguity, threat, and desire – formed by both external projections and internalized narratives. In medieval bestiaries, a bare-breasted mermaid appears alongside lions and serpents, with her sexualized form catalogued as equally fearsome. The beast becomes a woman; the woman, a beast.
The association of women with the “dark continent” reflects long-standing prejudices that link female bodies and emotions to nature, animality, and lesser intellect – opposed to the male ideal of reason and control. Woman as a mysterious “other” – what Betty Friedan termed the “feminine mystique.” In the post-Soviet Baltic context, this legacy takes a distinct shape: the public image of the ‘superwoman’ – efficient, composed, ideologically polished – dominates, while the biological realities of womanhood remain hidden.
Vernere’s exhibition frames a cultural logic of womanhood as opaque and unstable – both feared and fetishized. Her candid engagement with female sexuality has often provoked discomfort, moral scrutiny, and even accusations of perversity. Her playful biomorphic figures embody the contradictions of claiming sexual agency. Bold and animated, they remain acutely aware of the consequences of transgressing norms of “proper” femininity. Set against the rigid geometries of Soviet modernist architecture, Vernere’s fluid, feral egg tempera figures create a subtle tension – a quiet clash between natural impulse and ideological order.
Sabīne Vernere is known for her expressive Indian ink paintings depicting anthropomorphic, gender-fluid beings. Opting for a limited, often monochromatic palette of colours, she diffuses her images on an abstracted plane where they float in a constant state of flux. There is a strong presence of beauty, sensuality and emotion in the artist’s works, but also disturbance and violence, a juxtaposition that correlates with the complexities of the dynamics between humans and nature. The most recognisable and most frequently encountered form in Vernere’s work is the vulva, which represents the interplay between feminine power and nature and serves as an allegory for her emotions and experiences. Although she focuses her investigative lens on bodily and sexual experiences, they never become the key topics but serve, instead, as an extension of her working language. Vernere’s works have a very defined plastic quality, which she has recently been exercising off the plane of her previous work by using various new materials and creating installations in space.
Sabīne Vernere (b. 1990, Kuldīga, Latvia) is a Latvian artist living in Riga. She is studying for a professional doctorate at the Art Academy of Latvia. Her formal education includes a Master’s from the Painting Department of the Faculty of Visual Arts at the Art Academy of Latvia and additional studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She has been in the SKETE painting residency at Savvaļa/Savage, Latvia (2022), JCE residence in Paris, FR (2022) and Cite residency in Paris, FR (2024)
Recent solo exhibitions include FEMALE MONSTERS at gallery ASNI, Dealing Temptation. SIRENS at the MABOCA exhibition space (2024), ANGLES MORTS at the Artists’ Union of Latvia Gallery, Riga, Latvia (2023); Sirens, Medusa and the Isle of Lotus-Eaters at Kuldīga Artists’ Residence, Kuldīga, Latvia (2022); O! at the artist-run space TUR_telpa, Riga, Latvia (2021); and (The) New Works at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, Latvia (2021). Recent group exhibitions include Triquetra at Kogo Gallery, Tartu, Estonia (2023); and Growing Out, Growing Up? Contemporary Art Collecting in The Baltics at Zuzeum, Riga, Latvia (2022); Don’t Cry! Feminist Perspectives in Latvian Art: 1965–2023 at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia (2023); In the Name of Desire at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia (2024).
Her works are a part of the collections of the Latvian National Museum of Art, VV Foundation, Signet Bank and SEB Collection.
The show will be on display until the 19th of July.
