Two emerging painters – Maja Masytė and Urtė Truskauskaitė – will showcase their works at Contour Art Gallery in Dūmų Fabrikas in the duo exhibition “Unfortunately I Wasn’t There | Mimesis.”
The exhibition features two independent yet conceptually intertwined painting projects that explore themes of memory, nostalgia, imitation, and time.
Maja Masytė
“Unfortunately I Wasn’t There”
Drawing on fragments of authentic photographs and writings, Maja reconstructs a past she never experienced. Her work is a visual embodiment of borrowed memory, reflecting on the reliability of imagery and the melancholic nostalgia for a place one has never been. Her paintings pose questions about how memory is transmitted and the relationship between image and truth, as she interprets a time period she never knew through a personal visual lens.
Urtė Truskauskaitė
“Mimesis”
Urtė’s work is rooted in old computers, calculators, their factories, and outdated technologies. Using imitation (from the Greek mimēsis – representation, mimicry), she recontextualizes these objects for her own artistic purposes. By removing them from their original function and placing them into an aesthetic and conceptual space, Urtė builds a symbolic system. Her paintings depict ghostly images of obsolete technology and tell stories of alien, oppressive, and dehumanized spaces. Within these spaces, figures wander, confronting their own emotions through the passage of time.
Both artists present mature, independent artistic inquiries in which painting becomes a tool to construct alternate realities – emotional or systematic, nostalgic or artificial. This exhibition is part of the final thesis program of the Vilnius Academy of Arts and marks the culmination of their bachelor studies – a first step into the professional contemporary art world.
Exhibition Dates: May 24 – July 6
Opening Event: May 24 at 3 pm
Venue: Contour Art Gallery, Dūmų Fabrikas, Dūmų g. 5, Vilnius
Gallery exhibitions are partly funded by Vilnius City Municipality
