“MELTING SHAPES” BY ARŪNĖ TORNAU

On Friday, 23 February 2018, at 18:00, Arūnė Tornau‘ art exhibition “Melting Shapes” is opening at KCCC Exhibition Hall (Didžioji Vandens st. 2, Klaipėda). On Saturday, 24 February 2018, at 11:30, the artist invites to join the exhibition tour.

In her exhibition “Melting Shapes”, Arūnė Tornau presents painting works as of 2015-2017 as well as spatial textile installation. The artist’s large-format paintings explore targeted existential themes of the fragile character of nature and human existence, relate the latter to the current sociological (modern-age) sense of the fall, which has been dominant in the context of contemporary art and in the texts of cultural theory for a while.

A. Tornau has always been interested in the nature cyclicism, temporality, changes and decline, ecology. However, as late as in the last 5-7 years, she succeeded to purify her ideas: to abstract the themes, get rid of unnecessary details, restrain the colours, and dim the shades. Moreover, the said themes came into resonance with completely different, “apocalyptic” feelings in a wider international context of contemporary art that responds to global political, ecological, and economic crises of today. A peaceful, focused image comes up as an opposite to the intense flow of recent information. The existential and poetic nature of the theme is also of interest to her. The new cycle takes on the role of emptiness as a no-man’s-land. The works mostly depict ephemeral, vanishing images – fading of colours, object melting, disappearance of traces, changes. In the context of disappearance and death, existence of items and objects are just intuited or non-existent at all. Awkward, amorphous architectural forms are vertically inclined in an abstract, viscous space and give the sense of the end of civilization or existence.

There is one motive for the last, not yet presented cycle of works “The Fences” by A. Tornau: certain obstacles preventing a deep look into the picture: fences, curtains, tree trunks, thick knots of scrubs, and sheared trees. As if the main object is hidden, covered from the eyes of a viewer. but you feel it is here. This sense of secrecy and the dark colouring creates an atmosphere of fear and tension. Watching through the fence is like an attempt to enter the restricted area, and the forest – like an embodiment, an abstracted sensual world.

The exhibition presents a spatial installation, which, according to the artist, reveals her, as a woman-creator’s, personal and emotional look, “A parallel theme and shape, which is supplementing the cycle, is a spatial installation dedicated to my mother, who died several years ago. It’s quite a fragile, intimate, emotionally significant piece of work to introduce a human scale and at the same time to enhance the effect of abstract natural conditions which is found in my large-format paintings”.

About the author

Arūnė Tornau (born in 1956) is a painter and art teacher. In 1974-1979, she studied at theArtAcademyinVilnius. Member of Lithuanian Artist Association since 1990. Chairwoman of the LDS Painting Section in 2009-2016. Has participated in many international and domestic exhibitions, has run art education projects inLithuaniaand abroad. Author and co-author of a number of art textbooks, the book “Latcho drom”, numerous articles, several video films, TV and radio broadcasts on art and art pedagogy. Created a stage design for performances, supervised painting exhibition projects inLithuaniaand abroad (Luxembourg,Brussels,Hague,Berlin,Warsaw). The artist constantly participates in group exhibitions inLithuaniaand abroad, holds personal art exhibitions.

On Saturday, 24 February, at 11:30, the artist Arūnė Tornau is giving a tour around the exhibition “Melting Shapes”. Compulsory registration by e-mail: edukacija@kkkc.lt or by phone 8 650 71704 (the ticket price includes the tour price: 1.70 EUR / 0.85 EUR. For the disabled,Klaipeda schoolchildren – free of charge).

Arūnė Tornau‘ exhibition “Melting Shapes” will run until 25 March 2018.

Working hours of KCCC Exhibition Hall (Didžioji Vandens str. 2, Klaipėda): 11:00–19:00, Wednesday – Sunday (closed on public holidays).