Andrėja Maiburovaitė’s Exhibition Crude 
Exhibition statement by art critic, writer Ieva Gražytė

Oil extraction always begins with a kind of conversation, reminiscent of flirting or even enchantment. Oil seekers call out to their prize in the depths of the earth by sending sound waves, and when it responds, all they have to do is take a bold step toward their prize by drilling a hole through which millions of years of history buried beneath our feet begins to flow to the surface. But as the pressure in the depths decreases, the greed of the thirsty does not diminish – earthly resources are mechanically pumped out, and the last drops are washed out of the depths by strong water currents.

The title of Andreja Maiburovaitė’s solo exhibition, Crude, refers to the multifaceted concept of raw material. The material is raw and uncultured, or more precisely, not yet cultured. Over time, the word has come to describe something rough and unfinished with great potential to become a masterpiece. The emphasis is most often on the insufficiency and lack of quality due to the raw material’s supposed lack of subtlety and elegance. Maiburovaitė’s paintings maneuver this “pictorial deficiency” with detailed figurativeness and a wealth of shades in their shiny surfaces, created by the reflectivity of oil, which mirror her autobiographical work.

After Lithuania regained its independence, Mažeikiai, where the artist was born, like other cities in the country, followed the new laws of the market economy. This led to increased productivity at the oil refinery, around which the life of the entire city revolved. The liquid from the depths and our own historical layers became an essential economic factor for the city’s residents in cultural narratives. Andrėja follows these narratives intuitively, like an ethnographic study, but with great consistency.

One of the stories is about an old apple tree that had grown deep in the family garden for many years. In the last summer of its life, the hundred-year-old tree unexpectedly blossomed profusely. By midsummer, its branches were weighed down by an overwhelming number of apples. Having expended all its energy on the fruit, the tree was unable to support the weight of its own branches. Broken, the tree ended its life with a hopeful reproductive sacrifice. In this poetic manner, the author intertwines the everyday use of natural resources and a woman’s reproductive anxiety in her personal stories. 

Crude also describes something unrefined, tactless, or vulgar. This raw material, which holds all the vitality and potential, is unambiguously the creator of the exhibition itself, reflecting the exploitation of women, nature, and workers, which has become a supernatural force. It is impossible to agree with the power of exploitation, which provokes interest, anger, sadness, or despair, just as it is impossible to remain indifferent.

The exhibition features abstract materiality in paintings and detailed concreteness in video works, which are duplicated as if by a lens that focuses sensitively on the image and meaning. The exhibition actively strives to capture the political, economic, and ecological exploitation that has been occurring for centuries. This exploitation began with the extraction of one of the oldest and most expensive natural pigments. 

Imperial purple, a pigment extracted from the secretions of tiny glands found inside soft-bodied creatures living on the Mediterranean coast, is highly prized. More expensive than gold, the extraction of this raw material has been banned in some areas or disappeared altogether due to its brutality and the destruction of large quantities of shells. The purple blood painting on display at the exhibition is yet another example of how culture juxtaposes the disciplining concepts of refinement and decency.