From 20 March to 12 April 2025, the Vilnius Graphic Arts Centre gallery ‘Kairė-dešinė’ will host an exhibition by Ulijona Odišarija titled ‘Wearing’. The opening will take place on 20 March 2025 at 6 pm.
Ulijona Odišarija’s solo show will feature works from series developed over several years inspired by her long-standing interest in images found on online second-hand clothing marketplaces.
The works in the show draw on a collection of amateur photography saved from reselling websites such as Vinted and eBay as a starting point. Low-fi, blurry, often haphazardly composed images that don’t accurately reflect the items they are supposed to advertise act as visual poems that speak to the melancholy of the domestic. Resistant to commercial criteria, these images clash with their intended role as product photography and instead become foreign bodies in the e-commerce spaces reflecting the fragmented everyday.
Ulijona pays great attention to thingness in her work – she is interested not only in the inexhaustible flow and variety of things but also the very conditions of their existence. Observing what makes something real, the artist seeks to liberate the object from its assigned function.
Led by the mood of the image collection, Ulijona creates new objects employing utilitarian materials that are usually intended to remain unseen or in the background: office supplies, repurposed packaging, various types of paper, adhesive tape, photo album inserts, as well as coffee, pearlescent paint and imitation diamonds.
Fragile, abstract sculptural objects and collages – inaccurately scaled paper fragments of clothing and footwear – act as fuzzy reflections of mass production. Intended to exist as equal participants in reality these objects ever so slightly slip past it. Highlighting the gap between structured reality and its permeability, the artworks remind us of the shadows in the ordinary field of vision.
Looking at the world through a humorous and tender lens, the artist is searching for a sweet spot between inertia and poetry, burnout and awakening, survival mode and imagination. When the camera focus suddenly shifts and blurs, and a too-bright light burns out and obscures the whole, you are left to surrender to the vibrating surfaces of the world.
Ulijona Odišarija (b. 1984) works in a range of mediums, predominantly sculpture, photography, video, music, text and acts of collecting. In addition to her practice she makes music with her band Steve & Samantha and organises community clothes swaps called Outfitting. She completed a Masters in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2016 (University College London).
Her work has been presented at E.A. Shared Space in Tbilisi, Georgia; Montos Tattoo, Contemporary Art Centre and National Art Gallery in Vilnius, Lithuania; Morra Greco Foundation in Naples, Italy; Toronto International Film Festival in Canada; Close Up Cinema, SET and Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, United Kingdom; PAKT and LIMA Foundation in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Showroom in New York, US, and online on flatness.eu, history-joy.cc and aqnb.com.
Exhibition team: Gediminas G. Akstinas, Gerda Paliušytė, Gailė Pranckūnaitė
Text in the exhibition by James Lowne
Translator Martynas Galkus
Organised by Vilniaus grafikos meno centras
The project is financed by Lithuanian Council For Culture, Lithuanian Artists’ Association
Partner National Gallery of Art of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art
Media partners: artnews.lt, 7 meno dienos
Sincere thanks to:
Elene Abashidze, Ona Juciūtė, Valdas Jucius, Hannah Le Feuvre, Vytas Narbutas, Rūta Noreikaitė
Contact us: +370 5 261 1995, graphic.lt / Opening hours: Tue–Fri 11am–6pm, Sat 11am–3pm
