“Peyote” astrology of Rūta Naujalytė 0

Prepared by Dovilė Stirbytė
www.kamane.lt, 2013-05-28
Rapolas – Clerk of Works, 2008, 235x130, beads, peyote stitch

In brief: Rūta Naujalytė is the artist of the youngest generation who graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts, Kaunas Faculty of Arts, Master studies of textile in 2008. During the studies the look of the artist and camera lens captured builders. The attention of R. Naujalytė was drawn by similar looks of builders and repeating behaviour samples. The result of the artist’s observations is a large scale work created in beads stitched in peyote technique “Rapolas – Clerk of Works”.

The artist became interested in astrology lately – she questions horoscope forecasts popular in the mass media as well as contradictions in descriptions of signs of Zodiac. Sarcastic intonations are typical of works of R. Naujalytė – they criticise information spread via mass media channels and clichés of stereotypes formed by them.

At the moment R. Naujalytė is creating the cycle “12” – portraits of her female friends (mostly artists) based on symbols of horoscopes. The author will present it in Kaunas biennial in autumn, in the context of the programme “Young Artists’ Projects”. The interview with R.Naujalytė is about this cycle and other creative moments of the artist.

According to her, the work “Rapolas – Clerk of Works” was born during her Master studies, when her relatives emptied a storage and gave her 8 big sacks with plastic beads of various colours. The artist had an idea to use the beads in creative work. The first object in which beads were used was a helmet of a builder decorated with beads. Later the artist created her Master work “Rapolas – Clerk of Works” on the same theme.

“1981/03/09” is the self-portrait of the artist created from horoscope symbols according to the date of birth of R. Naujalytė. The artist explains that she decided to take interest in the theme of astrology due to the fact that the distribution of all people to 12 signs of Zodiac levels all people and turns us into one mass.

R. Naujalytė will present the cycle “12” in Kaunas biennial in autumn. According to the artist, she decided to create astrological portraits of her twelve female friends not in vain. On the basis of various researches, 75 percent of readers of astrological forecasts are women. The artist asked friends to send her photographs and then she started compiling their character qualities. The question appeared whether the general qualities according to horoscopes really represent us. How much is it real and how much is it a coincidence?  

“Horoscopes and beads match very well in my opinion as they are both kitsch-like, superficial, and the technique helps to reveal and give prominence to the general idea. The surface created from many colourful beads strengthens the critical attitude to horoscopes,” the artist states.


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