MONIKA PLENTAUSKAITĖ (b. 1993) is a Lithuanian painter, a graduate of Vilnius Academy of Art. Her paintings hang in the collections of foreign collectors as well as the MO modern art museum in Lithuania. Her painting works have been presented at the Lithuanian and foreign art fairs by the gallery Meno Niša. In 2018, the artist became the winner of one of the most significant art events in the Baltic States – the Young Painter Prize.

For several years now, in her work, Monika Plentauskaitė has been developing the themes of memory, identity representation, and the fictionality of photography and painting images, raising identity questions and looking for answers in the photographs of the past.

In the paintings created since 2021, great importance is dedicated to the leitmotif of hair. The author, using the classical oil painting technique, gives hair one of the main roles in the plots of her paintings. Here they play a metaphorical – symbolic role in paraphrasing the themes of memory, identity, materiality and femininity. The paintings are characterized by theatricality and directing, which acquires the features of surrealism. Quotes / references to the art history, fairy tales, the author’s childhood artifacts (toys, photographs, personal belongings, etc.) that are hanging around today are also unavoidable. In paintings, the poses, acting, and ornamentation of motifs and depictions are often found. The hair motif and texture are used not only to reveal, but also to cover, to hide – in the latest series of paintings the characters are anonymous – direct gaze with the viewer is abandoned, they are depersonalized in order to be symbolic and versatile.

ARTWORKS ON ARTSY

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