Kristijonas Gurčinas: Sundew
For several years in a row, Galerija VARTAI has been happy to open its space to young talents, graduates of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. This year, we are looking forward to presenting the graduation exhibitions of Kristijonas Gurčinas and Benas Matijošaitis.
Kristijonas Gurčinas
Sundew
The sundew has many hair-like leaves on its stem, with droplets full of nectar at the tips. Reminiscent of morning dew, the droplets glisten in the sun and lure insects to land for a drink. However, the droplets also act as a strong glue, the insect simply sticks when it lands and is then engulfed and digested by the stem of the sundew.
I do not have a clear relationship with the funerary customs and traditions of the last century because I was simply not alive then. I have not experienced it. I only know what I have heard from relatives, from books I have read, or from what I have been able to discern by studying family photographs documenting funeral ceremonies. It seems that the fact of death, along with funerary customs, have been pushed out of life, suppressed and obscured over time. From what I can see in the family photographs of the past, the Lithuanian funeral tradition seems beautiful and meaningful. However, I don't know what it was really like. I feel like one of the insects stuck in the nectar glue of a sundew.
With the painting series "Saulašarė", I want to commemorate not only my own kin, but also everyone else's, and to find a means to talk about the funerary customs of the last century, their disappearance and significance. The title of the series of paintings becomes an illustrative link between the subject matter and its conceptualisation through painterly aesthetics. I use this medium as a plane to beautifully express the heavy themes contained in the archive of photographs, which, like the sundew - a small graceful plant - hides a dark and complex nature within itself.
