www.gerlikaite.lt - NEWSLETTER September 2011

Jurgita Gerlikaite's solo exhibition in Bornholm, Denmark

My work was selected to represent Lithuania at the events dedicated to Culture and Art centre Svanekegaarden 20 years jubilee and Baltic countries independence conference „Past – Freedom – Future Baltic 1991–2011“  27-28th September 2011. I went there few days before the exhibition opening to see the island and meet the organisers. It was my first time in Bornholm. The exhibition and the trip was organised  by Lithuanian Culture attaché in Iceland, Denmark and Norway Liana Ruokyte-Jonsson and funded by Svanekegaarden and Lithuanian Culture Ministry. While in Bornholm I met Astrida Rogule, a senior curator of contemporary art collection at the Latvian National Museum of Art. She has brought a touching and sometimes disturbing collection of various objects, graphic prints, photos and video installations representing artists' view of life in the soviet regime.
The event coincided with the International Puppet Festival and I had an opportunity to see the plays and meet the actors of the Vilnius Theatre “Lele”, London duo “Folded Feather” and their “Suitcase Circus”, Norwegians Knut Alfsen and Agnes Schou's “Levende Dukker” and their Bushbaby, Danish actress from Samsøe Loui Danckert and her humorous and thought provoking death cabaret ”Requiem”.
Many thanks to colourful ladies Kirsten Warburg and Ella Jallov who have shown me the island of Bornholm; to Annelise Molin, the chairman of Svanekegaarden for her hospitality and fascinating conversation about her experience and intimate knowledge of Lithuania and the Baltic states as well as culture funding in Denmark, that enables such cultural variety and artists to feel empowered to create and show their work; Mette Zacho, general manager, who made sure I had everything needed and also brought local volunteers to help me with the exhibition; to Mie Hjort for financial advice; also to fellow artists and ideas for the future, and many others. As ever I enjoyed being in Denmark very much. 

Press release, Copenhagen 05.09.2011

Lithuanian Artists’ Jurgita Gerlikaite’s personal exhibition in Bornholm, Denmark

Jurgita Gerlikite’s exhibition in Bornholm opened at Svanekegaarden Cultural and Art centre 9th of September and is dedicated to Svanekegaarden’s 20 years anniversary and Baltic countries conference „Past – Freedom – Future Baltic 1991–2011“ which will take place 27-28th September 2011.
This exhibition is a retrospective of Jurgita Gerlikaite’s work created 2004-2011, prints of various techniques and styles: intaglio to digital graphics.

“I am very happy to have been invited to make a personal exhibition in Denmark and represent Lithuania. It’s a symbolic return to the country I lived in for seven years and came to love as my home country. Here I learned Danish and matured as an artist, here unfolded my creative language. With gratitude I remember my teachers Henrik Boegh, Charlotte Grangaard-Jensen and other artists I communicated and worked with. I associate Denmark with freedom to travel and create. My freedom of creation and mobility is linked with the freedom of the nation I come from,” said Jurgita Gerlikaite.

Jurgita Gerlikaite is a professional graphic artist and art historian, was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, to a family of artists. Jurgita graduated Art history and theory studies from Vilnius Academy of Arts and took Printmaking courses with Parisian graphic artist Žibuntas Mikšys. Later Jurgita studied Printmaking at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts in Reykjavik and Non-toxic printmaking and Digital graphics with Danish graphic artist and author Henrik Boegh at Printmaker’s Experimentarium in Copenhagen. She also worked at artist’s workshop “Factory of Art and Design” in Copenhagen. Jurgita Gerlikaite has MBA degree in UNESCO Cultural management and cultural policy from Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2009 and is a member of Lithuanian Artists’ association since 2006.

Jurgita Gerlikaite actively participates in exhibitions since 1995, has had 16 solo shows in the period 2003-2011 in her home country and abroad. Her images have been exhibited in many different countries around the world: USA, Denmark, Norway, UAE, UK, Poland, Russia and elsewhere. She was awarded 1st Degree Diploma for her work “Meditation VII” at Belorussian International printmaking exhibition in 2008; participated in selected group exhibition in United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2010. J. Gerlikaite has created a series of 36 images on the subject of a city inspired by architecture and cultural diversity of Dubai in 2009-2011, to be published as a book.

”It is obvious that Jurgita Gerlikaite eagerly took over the endless possibilities of the digital techniques. They let her continue and develop the experiments she has been performing through the years within more traditional graphic genre as woodcut and photogravure. All these experiments are related to the human world of imagination, also the visual and cognitive challenge of it. By the refined aesthetic means of the art piece we are attracted or, better to say, seduced into the world, where beside the fantastic surface basic human experiences of good and evil hides. Last but not least, the artist tackles such conceptions and terms as sin, evil, light, darkness, decline, resurrection, which we are forced to be related to, not only on the aesthetic, but also on the existential plan.

It is claimed that the new digital techniques either are too simple, too little physical or too shallow. Jurgita Gerlikaite’s compositions prove the opposite. In her hands the digital process transforms from means for playful experiment into a place for existential and metaphysical contemplations not losing a thing of the absolutely visual excitation. By this double grasp of aesthetic excitation and cognitive depth Jurgita Gerlikaite’s graphical art pieces are extremely exciting and competent”, wrote about the Lithuanian artist art historian and author Tom Jørgensen.

The Exhibition will run until 2nd October 2011.

Jurgita Gerlikaite’s art exhibition was organized by Cultural and Art Center “Svanekegaarden”, Lithuanian Culture attaché in Denmark, Iceland and Norway, and sponsored by Lithuanian Culture Ministry.

Information about the exhibition in Danish: www.baltikum2011.dk/index.php
Information about the exhibition in Lithuanian: dk.mfa.lt/index.php

Information about the artist Jurgita Gerlikaitė: www.gerlikaite.lt

Liana Ruokytė-Jonsson
Lithuanian Culture attaché in Denmark, Iceland and Norway

At present you can see my work at several exhibitions:

Jurgita Gerlikaite at Svakenekegaarden
Skippergade 2-8
DK-3740, Svaneke, Bornholm, Denmark
9th September - 2nd October 2011

At the group exhibition by Lithuanian women artists at Vilnius City Hall
“About it”
Didžioji 31
LT-01128, Vilnius, Lithuania
5th - 28th September 2011

Group exhibition by three artists Petronėlė Gerlikienė, Pranciškus Gerlikas, Jurgita Gerlikaitė
„Summer fruit“
Gallery Darijaus
Dominikonų 7/20
LT-01131, Vilnius, Lithuania
28th August - 8th October 2011