About Ruta Matuleviciute

Event: Animal Farm

Dates: 6 Mar 2023 - 6 Apr 2023

The starting point for this exhibition is the gallery location. The gallery is located in the industrial district of Žemieji Paneriai. In the 1960s, industrial buildings began to rise, including the Vilnius Meat Factory. The building in which the gallery is located was its culinary shop, which started work later in 1983.

Gallery T. 2, which opened in 2022, represents an effort to humanize the site: culinary dishes with meat have been replaced by the work of young female artists. Visitors can also see the remaining buildings of the Combine around the site.

It is easy to understand that the author borrows the title of the exhibition from George Orwell – because of the relevance of his novel to the Soviet system, as well as because of the use of the grotesque and black humour as means of expression. At the same time, the livestock farm is directly linked to the meat factory.

Event: Atlantis

Dates: 10 Oct 2021 - 28 Jan 2022

The title of the exhibition – Atlantis – whether a myth or a true story, speaks of the prevalence of a world in perpetual flux, and the infinity that lies beneath, as if under a thin membrane on the surface of the water, or a layer of varnish on a painting, manifesting itself in everyday life in ever-changing forms.

The solo exhibition reflects the artist’s latest approach to painting. Rūta Matulevičiūtė, who explored the perception of a work of art during her studies, has radically changed her approach to creativity, with the development of creative intelligence through Transcendental Meditation as its foundation. Using images from her childhood, Lithuanian fairy tales, and the iconography of her personal mythology, the author searches for an individual expression of a foundational Lithuanian identity that has become aware of and no longer identifies with, the traumas of history.

Event: Wisdom Vendor

Dates: 10 Jan 2019 - 26 Jan 2019

Wisdom Vendor is a project that merges the legacy of ancient cultures and traditions with contemporary world-views. An interactive installation, in which the Android system is used, works as a divination mechanism, based on The Chinese Book of Changes, and its first translation into English (by Richard Wilhelm) that reached the West. At the very centre of the gallery a black view-reflecting cube with automatic answer generating system is installed. This is a symbol of the holistic world-view. Being a divination machine, the installation refers to XXth century psychology‘s term of individuation process – the eternal journey to the Self. The installation embodies multilayered and miscellaneous significations. The goal is to reach the deepest aspects of existence and humanity.

Event: SPHERE

Dates: 2 May 2018 - 26 May 2018

Ruta Matuleviciute‘s exhibition SPHERE teleports us to the forest. Her precise painting manner and mastery convince the mind that we have entered Nature‘s sanctuary. The author identifies the strict following of rationality only as a barrier, a boundary that doesn‘t allow to constantly see anew or from a different perspective. Therefore, it is not strange that Ruta‘s creation is so atmospheric and sense-based.
She finds the correlations between Eastern and Western philosophy as well as pagan wisdom, which gives a versatile worldview.

Art critic Austeja Mikuckyte-Mateikiene