Sea of Ice
At 6 pm, Thursday, June 17th, THE ROOM gallery (Polocko St 17, Vilnius) opens Ieva Mediodia’s exhibition of paintings ‘The Sea of Ice’.
On view till 12 September 2021.
Ieva Mediodia about the exhibition:
‘The disconnection from the ecosphere is forcing human beings to experience the fragility of a belief in human existence beyond the world; as if there is not a unity. The energy that we expend to gratify our immediate impulses for pleasure, rapidly melt glaciers and their beauty.
The remote viewing of glaciers hydrofracturing is a spectacle on the computer screen, but terrifying and inspiring of awe when massive, once frozen, glacial peninsulas shatter off into the sea in actual physical space. The icy poles furthest from the equator, most distant from the human ear and eye and we do not hear when glaciers are melting loudly. Their melting is loud because the fissure is sudden and due to the subsequent sea level rise, this ‘melt’ is impacting the destiny of life forms in an unpredictable manner. We are unable to foresee how the coastlines will appear to future generations.
To look at Caspar David Friedrich’s painting ‘The Sea of Ice’, reveals a mental landscape, a dynamic snapshot of a state of perception. The melancholy of the landscape allows me to sense the impermanence of reality, time lost and our relationship with our immediate environment.
Referencing Friedrich’s piece, I record my perception of melting glaciers through an intuitive process, using mixed media on different surfaces, involving natural elements (heat and cold outside), body, airbrush and typewriter. Simultaneously through this process I create a melancholic landscape of my consciousness and say goodby to the familiar world. What is our world going to look like? Glacier melting and climate change is happening in me, as well. This isn’t the depiction of the news broadcast from the outside, but rather the news broadcasting from the inner channel.’
About the author:
Ieva Mediodia was born in Kaunas, Lithuania. In 1987 she attended the Art Gymnasium in Kaunas, and went on to study at the Academy of Arts in Vilnius, where she earned a BFA in painting in 1993. In her last year at the Academy, she had a painting class with the New York artist Kes Zapkus and was inspired to study art in the United States. She was a cofounder and a member of prominent art group ‘Good Evils’ in Vilnius. She left Vilnius in 1996 to study painting at Hunter College, New York, and earned an MFA in 2001.
Since graduation in Vilnius Art Academy and New York Hunter College she has gained attention and participated internationally in numerous exhibitions in France, Finland, Romania, Italy, as well as many in Lithuania and the USA. Notably Ieva Mediodia was represented by prominent
New York dealer and gallery owner Annina Nosei in Chelsea New York, who has exposed Ieva’s work to a larger audience and showed her artwork in Europe and the US.
Her awards include Grant for the Arts and Individual Grant from the Lithuanian Council for Culture; a Graf Travel Grant to Pompeii from Hunter College; a Westerly Trust Grant, London; and a Soros Foundation Grant for an exhibition in Lyon, France.
Her works are in many private collections internationally including Lewben Art Foundation (Vilnius), MO museum (Vilnius).
Since 2014–2019 was a co-founder of nonprofit art program Sla307 Artspace at Lithuanian Alliance of America, which was a collaboration between artists of Lithuanian and other nationalities in New York.
In 2012 artist had a broad presentation of her work at gallery Vartai. In 2019 Ieva Mediodia returns to Lithuania with the cycle of three exhibitions – Vilnius City Hall, Trivium gallery (Vilnius) and Šiauliai Art Gallery (Šiauliai) and at the beginning of 2020 her largest retrospective exhibition ‘Expulsions of Eve’, curated by L. Kreivytė at KCCC exhibition hall (Klaipėda).
Sponsors: Lithuanian Council for Culture
Exhibition on view: 17 06 2021 – 12 09 2021
Open: III-V 12-19, VI 11-15
Admission free.
For more information go to: www.facebook.com/TheRoomArtBooksWine