Artist

RUTE MERK
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Biography / Selected Works / Exhibitions / Related News
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Rute Merk was born in Lithuania in 1991 and lives and works in Berlin. She received her BA in Painting from Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2013 and acquired her painting diploma from Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, 2020. 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. 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: Solitaire at Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, 2020; Sprites at Downs & Ross, New York, 2019; Virtualacra at VENT Gallery, Vienna, 2018; and Spirits Within at Editorial, Vilnius, 2018.

Rute Merk, ​Jomanté, 2020, oil on canvas, 118 x 87 cm

Solo Exhibitions

2021    Стрілецька, WT Foundation, Kyiv, UA
2020    SS20, Downs & Ross, New York, US
2020    Solitaire, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, CN
2019    Sprites, Downs & Ross, New York, US
2018    Virtualacra, VENT Gallery, Vienna, AT
2018    Spirits Within, Editorial, Vilnius, LT
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Group Exhibitions
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2021    Vacation, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, CN
2021    [Permission Denied], Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, CN
2021    Strained Intimacies, Hussenot, Paris, FR
2019    Inner Pockets, Editorial, Vilnius, LT
2019    Jahresgaben, Kunstverein München, Munich, DE
2019    Fakten Träumen – Dreaming Facts, Galerie Weisser Elefant, Berlin, DE
​2019    TT, Atletika Gallery, Vilnius, LT
2019    XVII a., Autarkia, Vilnius, LT
2019    L’artiste devant sa toile, Marburger Kunstverein, Marburg, DE
2018    Jahresgaben, Kunstverein München, Munich, DE
2018    Jahresausstellung, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich, DE
2018    Entangled Tales, RUPERT, Vilnius, LT
2017    JCDecaux Prize, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, LT
2017    White Walkers, curated by Kaspars Groševs, Tallinas 10, Riga, LV
2017    Body and Darkness, Galerija VARTAI, Vilnius, LT
2017    Children of the New East, Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn, EE
2016    Žilvitis (Willow), Galerija VARTAI, Vilnius, LT
2016    Joy and Mirror, Galerija 427, Riga, LV
2016    Growing Insistence, Šiauliai Art Gallery, Šiauliai, LT
2015    Young Painter’s Prize, RUPERT, Vilnius, LT
2014    Work-in-Progress, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, LT
2013    Young Painter’s Prize, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, LT
2013    24 Spaces – A Cacophony, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden
2012    Painting in Lithuania, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, LT
2012    Contemporary Past: Tracking a Postcard, Nida Art Colony, LT
2012    Story II – we hear same, DE KIJKDOOS, Amsterdam, NL
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Awards

2017    Winner of Audience Prize, JCDecaux Young Artists Prize, Vilnius, LT
2015    Painter’s Prize, Vilnius, LT
2013    Young Painter’s Prize, Vilnius, LT


Collections

​M Woods Museum, Beijing, CN
Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, CN
X Museum, Beijing, CN

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