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About the Artist:
Aglaja Ray’s practice spans painting, illustration, murals, and immersive installations. Her recent series turns toward quieter inner states, drawing on nature, dreams, and sensory stillness to reflect on fatigue and overstimulation in a hyperproductive world. Before this shift, she spent years investigating theology, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism, using speculative imagery, UV-reactive materials, and surreal cyborg forms to question our evolving relationship with faith, technology, and the body.
About the Artwork:
Statement from the artist:
It was quite a warm summer day, and I took my bike to go to the nearby forest to sketch. It was like seven kilometres from where I then lived, from my hometown in Lithuania, Griskabudis. I made a couple of sketches in my sketchbook with a pencil. From beginning to the end, it took me almost two years to finish this painting. I finished it while on a later art residency at the Klaipeda Culture and Communication Centre (KKKC).
First, it was all about he floating figure. Above the earth. Just.a strange creature. Maybe that's how the angels look, who knows, they are kinda scary as the Book says. Perhaps it's my take on an angel. Or it is an auto-portrait. The creature's head has a light attached to it. It's like a "cyclope" light, the one I use when tattooing. So this creature floats above the ground. It could be a rooftop with three holes. Most important is not to fall into those holes. You know that octopuses are very smart, right? Like, each tentacle has its own brain. “Octopuses' sucker-covered arms can act as if they contain partly independent mini brains. Each arm gathers sensory information to drive its own movements—and even those of other arms—without consulting major brain regions, as https://www.scientificamerican.com/ article states.
This painting was all about this floating creature with the tentacles. And then I felt like it was too apparent, everything was too much in your face, so to speak. So I painted over most parts. I was thinking about the glass and the mirror, how it shattered, and we can’t see the full view anymore. So it is with this painting. Now we can only see in part. And we don’t know what is going on. The image presents a fragmented reality. We have to figure it out as if it were not complicated already. But the woman, or the feminine octopus lady, as you prefer, wants to find the way out, away from the deadly holes. She’s seeking where to go with her flashlight and cyclope lamp. I hope she will succeed.
Size: 100 cm x 100 cm
Year: 2022
Materials: Canvas, acrylic and aerosol paints
Framing: Framed by the artist
This one-of-a-kind, original acrylic painting on canvas is signed on the back and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
The painting will be sent in a box from Europe. Please get in touch with us at hello@kartugallery.com before purchasing if you prefer an alternative option.
