Exhibitions archive

Exhibition “The Flowers of Blue Deeps”

01.05.2020 – 13.09. 2020

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania presented the joint exhibition “The Flowers of Blue Deeps” featuring the paintings of Danguolė Raudonikienė (b. 1937) and composer Dalia Raudonikytė With (1970–2018).

D. Raudonikienė grew up in exile in Eastern Siberia, where she graduated from the Irkutsk Institute of Foreign Languages. After returning to Lithuania, she worked successfully as a translator and English teacher. This artist started painting at the art studio “Paletė” (her mentor was Rimas Zigmas Bičiūnas), where the tradition of naive art has been fostered since the studio’s foundation in 1971. The creations of D. Raudonikienė are part of the second generation of representatives of Lithuanian naive art, whose creative expression is influenced by modern visual culture and urbanism. Like other Lithuanian naive art painters of this generation, in her work D. Raudonikienė focuses on viewed landscapes and conveys the change of seasons, panoramic views of Vilnius, city and rural festivals, moments from family life, and still lives of flowers. On the other hand, the scenes in this artist’s paintings stand out with gentle melancholy and subtle humour, and the style of painting, which is dominated by bright but harmonious colours and generalised forms, is characterised by spatiality and reserve. The temperate style of the artist’s paintings invites the viewer to take a look, to discover the nuances of colour and form, which are often created using an open and rich blue colour and its halftones. An example of such creation is the series of blue flower bouquets, which D. Raudonikienė has been painting for several decades; in this series, different moods and emotional states are conveyed using the same thematic motif and colour scheme.

At the exhibition, works of D. Raudonikienė were displayed next to the paintings of her daughter, the composer of orchestral and electronic music, D. Raudonikytė With. The expressive, free-form painting of D. Raudonikytė With can be perceived as the continuation of her experimental, minimalist, contrasting musical spaces. Although the composer‘s music is characterised by literary, philosophical references and interdisciplinarity, the exhibition featured expressive painting and its plots in an open and intimate conversation with the naive style works of D. Raudonikienė.

Naive art, which is practiced using academic norms of expression, and mostly by self-educated creators, is today perceived as an independent artistic expression form. The creations of representatives of naive art often become part of international art biennials (for example, the Venice Biennale “Il Palazzo Enciclopedico” organised by Massimiliano Gioni in 2013), it is included in the programs of global art centres (such as the Tate Museum in the UK) and its collections are stored in specially created institutions. Some members of this genre, such as Frenchman Henri Rousseau (1844–1910) or Kartvelian painter Nick Pirosmani (1862–1918) are widely recognised internationally.

The D. Raudonikienė and D. Raudonikytė With exhibition “The Flowers of Blue Deeps” was the second exhibition of naive art in the renewed National Library. It invited you to look at this genre while abandoning one’s preconceptions and perceive this art as an integral part of Lithuanian art history.