Sigita Maslauskaitė-Mažylienė. “Vigils”

Vilnius Graphic Art Centre continues its series of drawing exhibitions – this time the curator Monika
Krikštopaitytė offers a close look at previously unshown drawings by Sigita Maslauskaitė-Mažylienė from various
periods, including sketches, visual diaries, experiments, and completely autonomous works.

In these drawings, admirers of the painter’s work will also recognise biblical themes from her paintings, where saints look like passers-by, and vice versa. Another part of the exhibition reveals the beauty of free exploration – here, the thick ink line swings between landscape and abstraction, a portrait of a stone is drawn using coloured pastels, and pensive heads instantly emerge from stains scattered on rustling paper. The kafkaesque figure and huge eyes of a character from the 1990s – the watchman guarding the Vilnius Old Town turnpike (Rain Man, 1990–1992) – will perhaps stick in many viewers’ memory.

Diverse plastic expression and unexpected turns only prove that anything can happen on a sheet of paper, while observing a drawing is always intriguing due to the thinking and seeing potential it reveals, hence such an exhibition becomes an adventure not only for the viewers, but for the organisers as well. Especially so when it spans a longer creative period, in this case several decades. Drawings from dated and undated series bear witness to waiting for insight and meaning. Perhaps drawing not only serves the painter in training the hand and stirring the imagination, but also becomes a form of vigilance and observation of the commandment to stay alert (Mark 13:33-37).

Sigita Maslauskaitė-Mažylienė (b. 1970) is a renowned art researcher and painter. In 2009–2022 she headed the Church Heritage Museum, and currently serves as Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to the Holy See (since 2022).

* The exhibition is part of the Vilnius Gallery Weekend programme. More information about planned events will be announced on  graphic.lt  and VGMC social channels.