Artist

RUTE MERK
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Biography / Works / Related News
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Rute Merk was born in Lithuania in 1991 and lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Merk received her BA in Painting from Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2013, and completed her painting diploma at Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, 2019. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Marburger Kunstverein, Marburg; Kunstverein München, Munich; RUPERT, Vilnius; and Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius. Recent solo exhibitions include: Sprites at Downs & Ross, New York, 2019; Virtualacra at VENT Gallery, Vienna, 2018; and Spirits Within at Editorial, Vilnius, 2018.

Rute Merk draws fuzzy lines among genders, anonymous identities, and also the integration of realistic fiction and virtual realities in the facture of her painting which reverberates in its aesthetics of late ’90s RPG video games. Staging her subject matters into the seemingly computer generated imagery and scenes, Merk takes a deep look into the distance between a person and the phantasmal of the given image, which simultaneously becomes a document and distortion arisen from the triumph of digital world and reformation of the individual. Unknown figures become animated through resemblance to specific personage in the state of virtual existence, a reincarnation of human spirits in the context of technological achievement.
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Rute Merk, ​Appaloosa, 2019

Solo Exhibitions

2019    Sprites, Downs & Ross, New York, US
2018    Virtualacra, VENT Gallery, Vienna, Austria
2018    Spirits Within, Editorial, Vilnius, Lithuania


Group Exhibitions

2019    XVII a., Autarkia, Vilnius, Lithuania
2019    L’artiste devant sa toile, Marburger Kunstverein, Germany
2018    Jahresgaben, Kunstverein München, Munich, Germany
2018    Jahresausstellung, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich, Germany
2018    Entangled Tales, RUPERT, Vilnius, Lithuania
2017    JCDecaux Prize, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania
2017    White Walkers, curated by Kaspars Groševs, Tallinas 10, Riga, Latvia
2017    Body and Darkness, Galerija VARTAI, Vilnius, Lithuania
2017    Children of the New East, Tallinn Art Hall, Estonia
2016    Žilvitis (Willow), Galerija VARTAI, Vilnius, Lithuania
2016    Joy and Mirror, Galerija 427, Riga, Latvia
2016    Growing Insistence, Šiauliai Art Gallery, Šiauliai, Lithuania
2015    Young Painter’s Prize, RUPERT, Vilnius, Lithuania
2014    Work-in-Progress, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania
2013    Young Painter’s Prize, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania
2013    24 Spaces – A Cacophony, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden
2012    Painting in Lithuania, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania
2012    Contemporary Past: Tracking a Postcard, Nida Art Colony, Lithuania
2012    Story II – we hear same, DE KIJKDOOS, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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