Vita Opolskytė’s solo exhibition no big deal, showcasing works created over the past two years, will open on September 12 at 6 p.m. at Algirdo St. 3 in Vilnius.

no big deal – the first step in preparing for an exhibition is to get a manicure.

What once felt like a feminine ritual has gradually become an everyday routine, even a kind of addiction. With my own hands I touch, caress and draw, I grasp and let go, I paint. Somewhat earlier, in the work What Goes with Red Nails? (2022), I explored the act of touching – both directly and indirectly – what is beautiful and at the same time unsettling. Later, modified, this rhythmical motif of hands kept reappearing, becoming a figure in almost every painting, each time adorned with the shifting colour, length, and shape of my own nails. They turned into markers of sharp contrasts in mental states, charting periods, places, feelings, and the people tied to them. And, of course, they carry an aesthetic charge as well. Here, I think I hardly need to underline the connections and parallels between these features and my painting practice itself. Looking back, I realize that in all my solo exhibitions I have never strayed from the hand motif – it has become my signature, revealing an autobiographical and deeply personal inquiry into the world that surrounds me. Perhaps only the perspective of that inquiry shifts with time. In this exhibition, spanning two years, I draw the viewer’s gaze even more insistently – towards me, from within me, and even away from me.

no big deal – my hand, created especially for this exhibition, becomes a symbol of self-exploration and personal storytelling, giving spatial form to the narrative dramas unfolding across the canvases. Can a broken glass shatter the entire world? Watching the continuity of past events, I find myself questioning, hesitating, even doubting their significance,” the artist reflects in introducing her exhibition.

Vita Opolskytė (b. 1992) is a painter of the younger generation, as well as a curator of exhibitions and cultural events, writer, lecturer in the Painting Department of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and founder of the young creators’ platform Kontr-Argumentas. Her work centres on the possibilities of magical realism in visual art, exploring the interplay between reality and fiction, the blending of intimate personal experience with broader cultural narratives, and the psychological and emotional intensity of depicted situations. The interior often serves as the point of departure for Opolskytė’s creative explorations. Within it, she constructs visually deceptive spaces, combining shifting scales, conflicting perspectives, and multiple points of view. Working primarily in painting – and positioning herself as her own subject of inquiry – she develops works in a collage-like manner, using eclectic techniques to question the universality of lived experience. Her paintings convey the layered complexity of contemporary life and invite the viewer to enter the stories unfolding within them.

The exhibition will be open until September 21.
Opening times: II–VI 16:00–19:00, VII 14:00–17:00.

Organizer – The Rooster Gallery
Partner – REALCO
Sponsors: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius City Municipality, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Cité Internationales des Arts, Antanas Dervinskas, Dominyka Volskytė „DoMyNails“, Burbulio vyninė
Designer – Eglė Kirlytė
Text – Vita Opolskytė