From Ukraine to the Lithuanian coast: the opening of the exhibitions by Maria Prymachenko and two Lithuanian artists in Klaipėda
Exhibition opening at 6 pm on Thursday, 24 April, 2025
The Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA (Liepų St. 33, Klaipėda) opens its spring season with two exceptional events. From 6 pm Thursday, 24 April, the Gallery invites its local visitors and holidaymakers to coastal Lithuania to see one of the most celebrated Ukrainian folk artists Maria Prymachenko (1909–1997). Her exhibition I Give You Sunlit Art, showcasing her collection of the artwork evacuated to Lithuania from the Zaporizhzhya Regional Art Museum, already presented with great success to Vilnius audience, arrives in Klaipėda. 24 April is also the opening of an exhibition by two established Lithuanian artists, titled Bloodstone, showcasing Gediminas Akstinas’s (b. 1961) sculpture pieces and Patricija Jurkšaitytė’s (b. 1968) paintings. The exhibition will be on in Klaipėda until 21 September.
“I am happy that Pranas Domšaitis Gallery presents two unique exhibitions accompanied by a special programme of events and education evolutions. These activities involve more volunteers of different age and different education levels, they help to strengthen the community of the museum. This time volunteer guides will give experience tours of the exhibitions,” Skaistė Marčienė, director of the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA, says.
The artwork by Maria Prymachenko, a symbol of Ukrainian culture
The visionary art by Maria Prymachenko has been become a legend and a recognizable symbol of Ukrainian culture. The self-educated folk artist is one of the most cherished artists of the country. Her likeness has appeared on the country’s coinage and stamps, her works have been used to illustrate fairy-tale books and featured in animation films. Sixteen Ukrainian memory institutions hold collections of world-wide-exhibited art of Maria Prymachenko. Her paintings have become symbols of the war-devasted Ukrainian culture, and from 2022 have been featured by the museums and galleries in Dresden, Kyiv, London, New York, Warsaw and other cities. Prymachenko’s work My Home, My Truth (1989) sold for 110,000 euros at the April 2022 charity auction in support of Ukraine. The images of the painting The Dove Has Spread Her Wings and Asks for Peace (1982) have been shared worldwide on the web, in posters and support messages.
The Pranas Domšaitis Gallery display will feature 63 selected Prymachenko’s gouache paintings from her collection of 100 pieces that arrived in Lithuania. A part of her works created from 1960–1994 are being restored at the Pranas Gudynas Restoration Centre of the LNMA. In the autumn of 2024, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art and the Jonas Karolis Chodkevičius Charity and Support Fund launched a fundraising campaign for the restoration and conservation of the work by the Ukrainian artist. The artwork restored on the raised money will be presented to the public at the Gallery in Klaipėda in September 2025. The exhibition of Maria Prymachenko’s unique and powerful art at the Vytautas Kasiulis Museum of the LNMA in Vilnius in the autumn of 2024 attracted plentiful visitors.
The search for new artistic expression in Patricija Jurkšaitytė’s paintings and Gediminas Akstinas’s sculpture pieces
Šiauliai based artist Gediminas Akstinas has branded himself through his hybrid “shelves”, which he conceived of producing and presenting in the early 1990s. His method allows for flexible use of elements across diverse visual arts, sculpture and architecture, drawing and painting. He has not satiated yet with these assemblages of thought and form, and will hardly ever do so. This format allows him to change the proportions of open and closed, empty and full, image and narrative. This exhibition is a space where the manifestations of the shelf that came about in the early 1990s and its recent kinds coexist, singly, or in collections, entitled “a shelf and an image”. There architectural and sculptural elements are supplemented by watercolours, where metaphor, abstraction and emblematic qualities come together.
These past few years saw Patricija Jurkšaitytė come about a new concept and practice for art making. She gave up the method perfected by her during three previous decades of paraphrasing classical composition and emulation of the traditional techniques of priming, grisaille and glazing. Jurkšaitytė reinvents herself as a painter, carving out a new place for herself: now the clarity comes about by giving up all the exquisite skills and by “unlearning” many things. Now success depends on rapid execution of a series of premeditated momentary gestures, without any retouching. Such series of paintings as Seashore (2023), Stairs (2024) or Street View (2024) are her experiments with simple materials and mediums: the first layer of red ochre, white gypsum, masking tape, decorative stencils and wide priming brushes.
The title of the exhibition was prompted by the use of ochre pigment in the works of the two artists, Akstinas opting to paint one part of the temporary walls in faded red ochre, thus showing solidarity to the co-artist of the event Patricija Jurkšaitytė, now red ochre being so important in her works. Nearly all of the pieces on display are property of the artists, most are exhibited for the first time.
The exhibition is accompanied by events and educational evolutions in Lithuanian and Ukrainian
The exhibition I Give You Sunlit Art. Maria Prymachenko’s Collection of Artwork Evacuated From the Zaporizhzhya Regional Art Museum is accompanied by tours and education events prepared in cooperation with the Ukrainian guide Iryna Bila. Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA invites to take part in free events, a guided (in Ukrainian) tour with Iryna Bila at 3 pm and 4.30 pm 26 April; at 1 pm 27 April and a creative workshop Tree of Life in the art of Maria Prymachenko (in Ukrainian) at 11 am 27 April. The artist’s works abound in plants, as she longed to create “Paradise on Earth”. Participants of the workshop will use monotype printing to create their own “tree of life”.
Guided tours with volunteer guides, representatives of different professions, start with the first such event at 5 pm 17 May.
I Give You Sunlit Art at the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery of the LNMA will run from 6 pm 24 April 2025 till 14 September; the Bloodstone by Patricija Jurkšaitytė and Gediminas Akstinas will be on from 24 April 2025 till 21 September 2025.
I Give You Sunlit Art. Maria Prymachenko’s Collection of Artwork Evacuated from the Zaporizhzhya Regional Art Museum
Curators: Aurelija Malinauskaitė, Skaistė Marčienė, Ilona Mažeikienė, Skaistis Mikulionis, Birutė Pankūnaitė
Designer Marius Žalneravičius
Architect Austė Kuliešiūtė-Šemetė
Patron Ukrainian Minister of Culture and Strategic Communication Mykola Tochytsky
Project leaders: Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arūnas Gelūnas, Director of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Art Museum Inga Jankovych, Director General of the Lviv National Borys Voznytsky Art Gallery Taras Vozniak
Restorers: Eglė Piščikaitė, Paulius Zovė, Rytė Šimaitė, Jurga Blažytė-Denapienė, Janita Petrauskienė, Dalia Jonynaitė
Translators: Jurgita Jasponytė, Irena Jomantienė, Džiulija Elena Fedirkienė, Ruslanas Skrobačas
Language editor Ieva Puluikienė
Organisers: The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Zaporizhzhya Regional Art Museum, Lviv National Borys Voznytsky Art Gallery
In partnership with institutions: Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Ukraine, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Poland, Ukrainian Embassy in the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian Armed Forces, Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, Ukrainian Patrol Police, Ukrainian State Boarder Guard Service, Ukrainian State Customs Service, Customs of the Republic of Lithuania; Šventaragis 1008th Riflemens‘ Company, 313th Company of Western (Sea) Riflemen 3rd Riflemen Territorial Unit, the Prymanchenko Family Foundation, LAW NET
Supporter General BTA Baltic Insurance Company
Supporters: UAB AD REM, UAB Bunasta, CLS Brokerage Company, UAB Nova Post Lithuania, Jonas Karolis Chodkevičius Charity and Support Fund
Donar Robertas Gabulas
Information partner Klaipėda Tourism Information Centre
The Lithuanian National Museum extends gratitude to the contributors:
Andrey Chernenko, Volodymyr Chornohor, Oleksiy Danilov, Lyubomyr Demianchuk, Valdas Dovydėnas, Robertas Gabulas, Tadas Gečauskas, Rita Grochovskienė, Tomas Ivanauskas, Renata Kanarskaja, Mirijana Kozak, Svitlana Naumenko, Ambassador Valdemaras Sarapinas, Narimantas Savickas, Elvyra Vasiliauskienė and Agata Voleiko
Patricija Jurkšaitytė and Gediminas Akstinas Bloodstone
Curator Anders Kreuger
Architect Marius Puskunigis
Designer Domantas Pigulevičius
- Purchase an e-ticket for this exhibition
- Book a guided tour of this exhibition by phone +370 46 410 421, email domsaicio.edukacija@lndm.lt
- Plan your visit to the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery
33 Liepu st, LT-92145, Klaipėda, Lithuania
++370 46 410 412
domsaicio.galerija@lndm.lt
