BFA Solo Exhibition - Guste Savukynaite - Gallery 2

Exhibition Dates: April 19-22, 2022

Honey

Disorientation and the state of liminality between or because of distractions has been prominent throughout my childhood with distractions increasingly becoming more common as I get older. Through a childhood filled with a lot of back and forth traveling from Lithuania, my home country, and the suburbs of Chicago, along with plenty of traveling amongst the states with road trips and so on in the summers, a sense of home has never been too clear for me creating a high spirit filled with curiosity, but also confusion as well. This confusion and disorientation has translated onto canvas surfaces over the past few years now in various forms holding ambiguity, some chaos, some breathing space, and some micro-macro relationships as well. It almost feels like in the world we currently live in we are meant to live in uncertainty or liminality with all of the notifications, mixed messages from media, and ads we receive and encounter.

Through mixed media with primarily using acrylic paint, my canvases hold space for those seeking to find a moment of peace when viewing art in their busy lives or the complete opposite and irritating someone with the repetitive shapes, as well as pops of color like oranges or greens all over the compositions and throughout pieces. Through a sense of motion filled within the pieces and harsher brush strokes, there is a suggested alteration in the way we view femininity. The stereotypical femininity is viewed as gentle, tender, emotional, warm, supportive, passive, and nurturing and while these qualities may still be present in my work, more direct and aggressive mark making allows for a change in that stereotype. These forms causing fragmentation give a sense of the fragmented society that either I take in and comprehend from the world we live in today with pixelated images everywhere or reflect my personal state of mind and heart, especially with how I take in certain moments. The fragmentation can also be a reminder of our need to return to chaotic innocence or playfulness.