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RUTA JUSIONYTE
STRENGTH BEYOND DESTRUCTION
“One only finds balance in extremes”
Her art was once said to be expressionist : nude and cracked bodies, questioning eyes, suffering yet grinning faces; Ruta’s characters, scared, sometimes haunted, used to cristallize something of the anguish and despondancy of repressed feelings as they surface from within. No doubt she had to go deep into the dark territories of her own shadow to bring out these doleful faces, these cracked and ravaged bodies.
Over the years, one has to admit that such a time is over. Ruta has transcended herself as the clay she models is transcended, strengthened and transformed by fire. As though she had triumphed over the furnace of torment that was burning inside her – the furnace of history, of exile, of doubt and intimate trials – so much so that her art now seems to have entered a more mature and serene period. The smile her characters nowdisplay speaks of confidence, of peace, of a new opening to the world, stripped of fear and rage. Less expressive, less emotional, Ruta’s art has reached a new language, less intimate but more symbolic, more universal, more mythological even. Surely this mythological repertoire of centaurs, wolves, and winged creatures was there already, but it was first and foremost expressive, it was there to express what came from the deep and intimate wounds of the past : anger, pain, melancholia, doubt and desire… From her sculptures now radiates a form of meek calmness, a tenderness so characteristic of those who have undergone trials, and overcome anger and resentment to reach some kind of simplicity, a new acceptance of others and of the world, opening up to new forms of creation : « I have moved beyond the cathartic stage unto a new level of creation revolving around the question of “the good life” » she admitted as we met in September 2019 in her studio.
Ruta Jusionyte’s art is not about getting to know herself anymore, nor is it merely a way of expressing herself, be it through symbols; it is not an outward expression of an inner self, nor of a rapport au monde anymore : she has reached another dimension, beyond self and being, maybe close to a kind of ransmission, where archetypal images, symbols from times past – maybe from a purely fantasmatic age –, move around us, slowly emerging from a collective unconscious.
FRANCISCO SEPULVEDA:
“ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2009”
FRENCH MAGAZINE AZART “ONE OF THE 50 BIGGER LIVING PAINTERS IN THE WORLD”
FRENCH MAGAZINE MIROIR DE L’ART
The Chilean artist lives and works between France & Mozambique. His work is full of poetry and surrealistic characters that question history and the contemporary society where he lives. He is one of the most significant young Latino-American artists in the French art scene.
Last solo shows: 2017 Galerie Claudine
Legrand, Paris; 2014 Galerie Le soleil sur la place, Lyon.
Last group shows: 2015 Galerie Chantal Mèlanson,
Annecy and Galerie 22 contemporain, Coustellet, both France. Public collections i.a.: The New York Public
Library; Museo Nacional del Grabado, Buenos Aires; Instituo de Artes Gràficas de Oaxàca, Mexico; Graphic Collection ETH, Zurich; Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels ; Bibliothèque de Catalogne, Barcelona;
Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid; Biblioteque National de France, Paris; Bibliothèque de la Part-Dieu, Lyon; Musée du dessin et l’estampe original, Gravélines; Musée Jenisch-Vevey-Suisse.
