03 04 2021 – 24 04 2021
There are artists who move forward quietly, without spectacular flips while diving into unexplored waters, so they don’t make impressive splashes of fountains on the surface of cultural life. Yet such a consistent movement ultimately brings them forward to what was called the avant-garde during the times of modernism, and in the present, which is not inclined to flash around military terms, perhaps we would call it relevant. Such is the work of Arūnė Tornau.
In fact, the artist’s attention is consistently focused on areas of silence – barely audible crunches, silent transformations, long-term processes of vegetation or even “dead nature”, inaudible to the human ear. Arūnė Tornau’s gaze is diverted to the dark depths of water, the twilight of forest, and the observation of plant growth and weathering. Maybe that is why, in addition to painting, the artist creates installations, objects made of old fabrics, wooden country house decorations or tools, and their parts. Rusty fabrics of the deceased mother’s bed, sometimes old medical gowns become a work of art. Therefore, it is not surprising that Arūnė Tornau does not use a new canvas for her painting, but pulls on a stretcher an old tablecloth, a curtain, even a wool fabric…
However, this remains hidden. No one can even guess that this painting of rust, tree shadows, and crushed stone covers and hides the whole world of sharply blooming flowers, weaving patterns, snowmen, even an embroidered mermaid. It was decided to show the “inner world” of the artist’s paintings in the exhibition by turning some of the paintings into the so-called “bad side” to the viewer. Now that sustainability and reusability is promoted so widely, Arūnė Tornau has been doing it for many years. These “inner” sides of the paintings seem to connect two seemingly different worlds of her work – painting and objects.
There are also new paintings presented in the exhibition, showing their “faces”, or the “good sides”, in order to achieve the balance that the author seeks in her work – so that the bright red flowers of the “inner world” do not occupy full attention, new paintings also have the right to be seen, don’t they?
Aistė Kisarauskaitė