2010 – 2012 a series of linocuts ‘Women’
The project ‘Women’ is a series of linocuts dedicated to yin. The image of a woman has extremely changed in modern society: a woman is free, more open and creative, having more space for her self-expression and joy of life. In the series, I narrate about famous and ordinary Lithuanian women by using the language of classical graphics: I reveal and interpret their universal characters of their portraits from childhood and adolescence. From my point of view, a woman is a unique human: free, creative, intelligent, interesting, pretty, ingenious, and active. She is a key cell of the society and family; she has a great career and personal life. I chose models for the work from my environment; I had an opportunity to meet, live, appreciate and interact with them. The women that became my favourites are authors or ‘consumers of culture’ enjoying their youth or maturity, their body or biography; these women are great mothers and famous individuals in the society. They made their way to the series from the photos of the Soviet era.
The internal character of a portrait took my artistic interest; I was wondering what graphic language would allow me to express my mood. I chose a classical solution for linocuts: black and white format.
I have been carving one cliché of the portrait for about a month, including pauses. Every single hand movement expresses meaning of my thoughts and a character of a portrayed woman or girl. In these works I was not going after the similarity of a portrait or anatomic accuracy. Involving a spectator by means of the graphic language into the game of lines and entangling him in their abundance and greyness I assume as the most important point. Therefore, one-way direction movement of diagonal lines, creating a ‘rainy’ flicker effect prevails in the prints. 7000 lines and more than 12 000 small lines are carved into the cliché.
