Egle Ridikaite is a Lithuanian conceptual contemporary artist. Her works are in the National Art Gallery and the Center for Contemporary Art. Ridikaite is the winner of the Lithuanian National Art Prize 2020.
TSEKH Gallery is holding the first personal exhibition of the artist in Ukraine.
Large-scaled canvases by Ridikaite are not separated by a frame, but nailed to the walls and become a part of them.
The artist considers architectural space and the space of a painting in a more complex way — not as a plane, but as a paradoxical union and reversal of meanings. Somehow, a 1:1 scale floors with an ancient mosaics find itself on a wall. Not as decorative motif, but as a conceptual reference to actual, existing entrances in Vilnius Old Town.
Her solution is paintings with no direct perspective, the ornament gives it rhythm. Ridikaite’s works are rhythmic. If you do not recognize the floors, they can be confused with Oparta or geometric abstraction. Her interest in the floors of Vilnius began with the Jewish sauna at 2A Užupio Street. The title of the first work in the series accurately describes artist’s state of mind: “When I Saw I Could Not Fall Asleep” (“Jewish Bath”). Egle conveys her observation of the beauty in the world, and we feel pure amazement.
The use of spray paint and stencils gives her work additional modernity and at the same time a strange disorientation of worlds. Her work process is a contemporary technique of depicting decorative art. The ornamental shape of these entrances is the result of handmade stencils, every detail of which is carefully reproduced from real life. The inaccuracy of the stairwell layout and empty spaces perfectly reflect and hint at the presence of a person. The artist depicted not only the patterns of the tiles, but also how they were erased, which helps us feel authenticity of the realities of life.
Cultural floors encourage us to look deeper, to look more closely, to see what beauty lies beneath our feet, and then to raise our heads to see how they turn into works of art. Ridicate creates a new environment for the forgotten element of history, giving it a second life. Her work allows us to rediscover what we have not previously noticed or rarely think about.
Egle Ridicate’s paintings are always something more than a typical wall decoration.
Daria Kapitonova