JURATE GIRDVAINIS

Her painting practice is grounded in repetition as a form of presence. She returns to the same motifs—everyday objects and simple forms—not to reinterpret them, but to remain in a sustained, attentive relationship with the image. Through minimal visual change, subtle shifts in colour, light, and space become perceptible.

 

Working slowly and methodically, she approaches painting as a practice of looking, where endurance and sustained attention take precedence over visual intensity. During her residency at Björkö Konstnod (2025), this practice temporarily shifted toward writing and attentive observation. Writing became a way of sustaining presence—a means of perceiving objects and states through language rather than image. Rather than replacing painting, this shift functioned as a parallel practice, deepening her ongoing engagement with repetition, slowness, and being. Across media, her work resists visual spectacle and invites a slow, prolonged engagement with time.

 



PRESENT TENSE

June 24 to July 7, 2025

 



BLUEBERRY SAFARI

sound poem

 

Silence

 

While others are planning the route,

…I’m lying on a cliff.

 

Pause

Listening.

 

I hear—

just fragments.

 

Silence

 

I’m sucking on a candy:

sweet, salty, anise…

…but in my mouth—

cherry.

 

Long pause

 

Where should I stay

in Stockholm?

 

Silence

 

A boat.

A boat-hotel.

Romantic.

 

Silence – inhale

 

I’m standing on dried,

sea-tossed

seaweed.

 

CRANCLE

Soft.

…pleasure.

 

Pause

 

I see—

I see three-legged creatures moving

on different levels of the forest.

 

I follow them

with my eyes.

 

Silence

 

Crancles.

Resilience.

 

Rhythmic silence break

 

Radio.

Footsteps.

 

Silence

 

Fiction.

A character.

Cliché.

 

Silence

 

Echoes.

Sounds…

…familiar.

Entangled.

 

Silence

 

Potpourri.

Recording.

 

Footstep

 

We walk.

 

Long pause

 

Blueberries.

Safari.

 

 

 

 

Step into my room —

where time has no teeth.

Where memory forgets your name.

 

 

Cliff Walk Recording (2025)

Recorded during a walk with Janice Jencen and Tricia Enns.

The audio functions as a practice of presence and attentive observation.

Narration by Tricia Enns.

 

Listen here: 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 











This place is fog.

Endless fog.

It smooths the edges of everything I thought I was.

 

I begin to dissolve.

Not vanish — dissolve.

 

I don’t want to observe myself

from a distance —

as if I’m “other.”

 

Nothing belongs to me-me.

Not even this sentence.

Not even this breath.

 

And somehow —

that’s what makes it beautiful.