Installation "The Night of a Rose" was made as a drastic offset against the traditional Lithuanian Expressionist school of painting.
Barilaite takes sentimental 20th century postcards brought from Paris and unmakes them into reddish pictures with kitschy yet sacral women's portraits. Sweet images of women are isolated from the viewers with the pink glass shades, which revives the girl's game "secrets". Rose coloured water in a little swimming pool bubbles symbolize energy, meaninglessly wasted for the sake of beauty. In the derelict church, the pictures ornamented with roses refer to the relation between culture and religion that has recently changed; sweet images of women denounce an unnatural, unreal model of an ideal woman.
Installation "The Night of a Rose" was made as a drastic offset against the traditional Lithuanian Expressionist school of painting.
Barilaite takes sentimental 20th century postcards brought from Paris and unmakes them into reddish pictures with kitschy yet sacral women's portraits. Sweet images of women are isolated from the viewers with the pink glass shades, which revives the girl's game "secrets". Rose coloured water in a little swimming pool bubbles symbolize energy, meaninglessly wasted for the sake of beauty. In the derelict church, the pictures ornamented with roses refer to the relation between culture and religion that has recently changed; sweet images of women denounce an unnatural, unreal model of an ideal woman.
The image of a screaming artist is projected on to the canvas, where the head of a baby is painted in red. Here we observe the insight into the relation between painting and video art, mother and child, and creator and viewer. The interactive work does not allow the spectator to remain passive, putting them in the role of ruthless assessor.
Pounding at a canvas with boxing gloves, Barilaite paints the face of a baby in white emulsion. First and foremost, it is "necessity defence" against the well-established hierarchy in art - both in the sense of form and sex. The artist is paraphrasing the long history of pictorial art through witnessed different methods of painting: with a brush, with the wrong end of a brush, with fingers, dripping or splashing colours, etc. The motif of a baby's head is repetitive throughout the artist's oeuvre, and refers to unconsciousness and imposed femininity.
In this work, the artist visually stages the well-known saying "storm in a glass". The image of the artist desperately splashing in the water is projected onto the glass of milk. The work not only expresses the everyday meaningless attempts to stay on the surface, but it also involves the viewer who is constrained to observe them without the possibility to change anything.
Tightly dressed in black, Barilate dances temptingly in front of a white car. Her flexible movements make the huge, still car look like a grotesque machine. The car, suitable for an average family, ironically reveals masculine values - reliability and economy. The motionless vehicle, the symbol of power, stands out in clear relief against the volatile body incarnating emotions.
The influence of cinematography in the artist's oeuvre is once again manifested in these drawings. Fragmentary, recurrent shots, coming both from culture and personal experience, closely intertwine to make up new narratives. They are all joined together by the thin red line drawn in spray colour - as if offset against the "thin blue line", revealing the arrogance of masculine control in all its absurdity.
On the screen, we see the artist's silhouette making different shapes. Putting fingers over her head she creates an illusion of the devil's horns. Hysterical male voice tries to control her motions but the shadow keeps moving at its own pace, duplicating itself, disappearing and emerging again. The video work exhibits the idea of femininity and masculinity intermingling in one body, fighting to control one another.
The installation comprises three video works:Little Jose,Other StoryandLittle Jose - the Box. The overall installation tells a story about the artist's inner character Jose, whose prototype lies in a book on Diego Velasquez which the artist read in her teen years. The character is a "masculine muse", constantly inspiring to create; the artist as if disclosed him, brought him into the light with the help of a camera. Painting here is an object of longing, previously rejected. In these works, the languages of early cinema and painting blend together. InLittle Jose(10 min) there is only whirling sky and the artist's forehead on the screen, but in the headphones one can hear the story of Jose's birth. InOther Story(3 min) the camera quickly approaches the artist dressed in black and disguised in a ski mask. As the camera focuses on the pupil of his eye, there appears Jose wearing the same garments as the artist - this is the inter-identification and inversion of the artist and the inner character. InLittle Jose - the Box(7 min) the camera is projected on to the box where we see the backward view ofLittle Josewashing out the canvas painted in black, symbolizes the preparation of space for creative process and constant reproaches.
"These are four short movies, depicting the face of the woman crying in the foreground (it's myself in front of the camera). All four movies were shot in the edge of Europe - most geographically distant European points. "Tears" are tears facing the crisis. It might be considered as the creative crisis, because it's an artist, who's crying. Or it may be the weep, as the stereotypical action of a woman, her 'weapon'. These might be the tears mourning 'the fate of the World, of Europe', which are facing the crisis of ideas, just because of the place - the distant frontiers of Europe. The action itself - the ultimate emotion - crying or tears - is a paradox. It's purifying process, it's therapy and it also perfectly reflects the stereotypical image of a woman".
Jurga Barilaitė
"Video installation - the projection on the blank sheet of paper, taken from the drawing album.
The film is assembled using the four videos, shot at the edges of Europe. It's a part of the face of crying woman, the nonstop flowing tears, and the word 'Nothing" repeated continuously. This work was born as the purification, facing the creative crisis".
Jurga Barilaitė
"It's a film about artist's responsibility and right, an ethical decision.
My six year old daughter is learning to read. She finds the black book. I think it was the picture of the blade on the cover and the fact that the book was tiny that attracted her. I faced the moral dilemma - the text varies from cruel to crazy, but the ideas are prophetic and meaningful (it was the text from 1968,Valerie Solanas "Society for Cutting Up Men Manifesto", however it's Lithuanian translation by Edgaras Klivis was as late as 2005). We are already living in the world of women".
Jurga Barilaitė
"I'm drawing faces, showing out in wallpaper ornaments - it's soviet belorussian wallpaper with realistic tralery, depicting birch sprays and tails - the fragment of a claustrophobic room. Rough montage, reminding the aesthetics of home videos, sound and imagery, takes us to the personal flashbacks of the childhood and does it by using just a sight to the drawings, seen on the wallpaper ornaments. It's the wish to repeat and record the primary power of the sight, to see the "invisible", to see those involuntary, persecuting images (a child's face in this case). Near the video projection we see the walls, covered with the wallpapers, recovered from the original fragment and printed out using digital means - the evidence of chantes".
Jurga Barilaitė
"I'm drawing faces, showing out in wallpaper ornaments - it's soviet belorussian wallpaper with realistic tralery, depicting birch sprays and tails - the fragment of a claustrophobic room. Rough montage, reminding the aesthetics of home videos, sound and imagery, takes us to the personal flashbacks of the childhood and does it by using just a sight to the drawings, seen on the wallpaper ornaments. It's the wish to repeat and record the primary power of the sight, to see the "invisible", to see those involuntary, persecuting images (a child's face in this case). Near the video projection we see the walls, covered with the wallpapers, recovered from the original fragment and printed out using digital means - the evidence of chantes".
Jurga Barilaitė
