Artist
RUTENE MERK
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Rutene 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.
Rutene 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. 
Rutene Merk, Appaloosa, 2019
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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 |