Kristina Kurilionok, Al crepuscolo / Twilight. 20 / 31 July 2020
solo exhibition, opening July 20, 6 pm
Galerija Akademija, Pilies str. 44, Vilnius (LT)
Akademija gallery, together with Pramantha Arte gallery, are pleased to announce a new exhibition of Lithuanian artist Kristina Kurilionok titled Al crepuscolo / Twilight. The opening will take place next Monday, July 20, at 6 pm. The curators of the exhibition are Antonio Bruno Umberto Colosimo and Maria Rosaria Gallo.
“This exhibition - say the curators - presents the latest works of the painter and announces something deep and unusual in the Kurilionok's production: a journey into the power of light.
Kristina Kurilionok - who has lived in Italy for the last two years - has curried out an extraordinary research on different comparison of lights, tones and effects between the Mediterranean region of Italy, Calabria, and Baltic landscapes of Lithuania; the first is the current artist’s residence place, the second is her native country. The perceived impressions - continue the curators - aroused in the artist a strong need to capture and compare the luminous essence of the places where she lives, taking up a very classic pictorial theme - the landscape - highlighting the opposite features of these two regions, so different from each other. The soft and continuous Lithuanian forests, lying in the cloudy gray of the northern sky, create a changing and indefinite environment, which, like a threshold, leads to a dreamy world of fairy tales. The luxurious, incredibly radiant woods of Calabria stand out against the intense blue sky as if to challenge it, drawing boundaries in their own colors and thus showing the viewer the eternal struggle of the titans of nature. And so heaven and earth, sea and sky. And precisely the twilight hours, morning and evening, in that subtle slow border between the light of the day and the darkness of the night, inspire the artist's soul to convey these feelings, those emotions, that life that enlivens and awakens a magical world often drowned in boring daily habits.”
“The whisper of the wind, downpours of water, a rustling of leaves, creaking of branches, chirping of birds, croaking of frogs. Howling, squeaking, whistling, humming of cicadas, barking of dogs, howling of cats. Game and love, fight and hunting, in the forest and in the sea, wonder and fascination, unbelief and amazement. All this comes to life in the artist's consciousness and through her pictorial expression, her emotional participation in natural phenomena and their aesthetic expression which changes with the variation of latitude on the terrestrial globe”.
“When I arrived in southern Italy for the first time - says Kristina Kurilionok -, I noticed a completely different feeling of light compared to Lithuania. The reality of the surrounding environment had changed radically and it took me some time to get used to seeing the sky stretching high. The abundance of light floods everything and everyone and the images of the southern landscape in their colors immediately cause confusion. Little by little, as the eyes get used to it, you discover the richness of the natural landscape: the beauty of unseen plants, trees and the whole landscape opens up in incredibly strong sunlight. All this awakens something primitive in you. After settling in Calabria, I tried to tame this environment as best I could, through painting. As in the 17th-century Dutch painters, who used landscape painting as a very convenient tool to get to know the world or as Erika Grigoravičienė wrote in “Visual Turn”: to get to know the living environment in terms of visibility. My relationship with the landscape is close to that of Edward Munch. Like him, I always try to paint the very first impression, to reproduce the first image that hooked me. Al crepuscolo / Twilight is the closest moment to my soul. Very beautiful in its silent relationship, muffled and semi-submerged. The muted light spreads through the ground and no longer flows towards you in its warm colors, especially in the south. I have started to notice these differences stronger after a short car trip from Calabria to Lithuania in the autumn. Until then, I couldn’t even imagine how close the Nordic mood was to me. The grey of our land shone for the abundance of its shades! When I returned to Italy, I painted many images of Lithuania, as if it were knocking on my memory, trying to get closer to my native land. I painted Lithuanian and Italian twilight, I tried to convey their space in the landscape. As in the descriptive depiction examined by Svetlana Alpers: painting is a surface on which the world seems to reflect, presents an image without a frame, and which obscures the artist, engages him in himself and does not indicate a place for the viewer (...) ”.
Kristina's words are enough to suggest all the possible sensorial experience to which the viewer is exposed by visiting the exhibition.
