Humans and Creatures
2018 11 23 – 2018 12 30
“Humans and Creatures” is a joint exhibition by two artists, Aistė Gabrielė Černiūtė and Vidas Poškus, inspired by and dedicated to all kinds of earthly beings. Back in the Classical antiquity and Medieval times, scholars grouped all living beings into humans and creatures (beasts, angels, spirits and mushrooms). Aistė Gabrielė and Vidas similarly, attempt at classifying all creation that stirs around them, yet with the help of visual in contrast to textual means. Both of the artists rely on materials and techniques each fancies most and has mastered best. A. G. Černiūtė moulds humans and non-humans of thick oil paints, rendering them in form that can be traced with eyes and fingers. The artist still refers to them as ‘paint-humans’. Vidas Poškus is more into story-telling and illustration rather than painting or depiction. His images depend on the narrative in order to be visual.
It appeared that the initial, working title of the exhibition was “Angels, Humans and Invertebrates”. It seemed to pronounce that all creatures whirling around us fall into spiritual saints, crawling conformists and eternally hesitating doubters. However, the creative process has proved that there is just one distinction, that between humans and non-humans.
On the other hand, the title and the concept of the exhibition drew inspiration from archetypal essays by the Latvian writer Zenta Mauriņa in her “Book about Humans and Things”. In the book, just like in the collection on display, human beings from different period and cultures, as well as things touched by their hands, experiences of those who encountered them, travel impressions and personal memories are bound together in a plexus that cannot be disentangled. The exhibition “Humans and Creatures” by Černiūtė and Poškus also appears as a kind of a visual essay where one finds impressions from Paris, the lingering atmosphere from walks across Lithuanian woods and reverberations of everyday life in Vilnius…