Thematic painting exhibition “Adhesions”

From January 23 to February 16, 2026, the Šiauliai Art Gallery will host the thematic painting exhibition “Adhesions”.

Participating artists: Donata Minderytė, Eglė Norkutė, Liucija Pačkauskaitė, Monika Kornilova, Monika Plentauskaitė, Paulina Domašauskaitė, Vita Opolskytė.

Curator — Vita Opolskytė.

The exhibition opening will take place on Friday, January 23, at 5:00 PM.
Admission is free during the opening event.

ADHESIONS

The fourth week of January is the bleakest. After the hope-scented pre-holiday bustle, with the bright garlands of resolutions already taken down, the dark month drags on slowly—it is almost standing still. This is the time when nothing happens, only snow falls inside you.* And so, in order to (sur)vive or to (get) out, one must look for simple, tangible things. I grow sentimental. Some people go to priests, others turn to poetry—I go to my friends!** Enduring the trajectory of this sad month, I begin to think about painting and about friendship.

They have collided at points that turned into memories, or into things already half-forgotten. Intersections of time, combinations of places, a spectrum of personalities. Contrasts fade, nuances become sharper; sometimes there are simply pauses. Sometimes, because of that, paintings happen. Yet in painting, as in friendship, everything—whether you like it or not—rests on relationship. And in this exhibition, that relationship is particularly peculiar. For some, it developed naturally and unexpectedly in early youth and continues to this day; for others, once inseparably strong, it was cut off in an instant. Some keep their distance, others chatter incessantly, or learn from one another, while the rest—perhaps quarrel, or worse still—mean nothing to each other.

This authorial relationship, based on the principle of adhesion,*** has become a staged bonding both between interpersonal ties and between the layers of paint in a picture. The name “seven painters”**** will probably not stay with them for long—most likely this is a one-time occurrence. “Is there a greater happiness in the world? <…> we shall walk here for at least two hours.”***** Away from the rapid pace of cultural life, in a city where the sun, at least symbolically, is a little more abundant than elsewhere.

Curator – Vita Opolskytė

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* A quote from Jurga Ivanauskaitė’s novel The Witch and the Rain, describing the inner state of the main character Vika during winter.

** Virginia Woolf’s remark on friendship between women from her personal notebooks, The Diary of Virginia Woolf.

*** Adhesion (Lat. adhaesio) — the bonding of surfaces of different materials due to molecular attraction; in this exhibition it is used as an ambivalent relationship both between the participants and between the layers of paint in a painting.

**** A reference to the artists’ group Four Painters (Aušra Andziulytė, Elena Balsiukaitė-Brazdžiūnienė, Aušra Barzdukaitė-Vaitkūnienė, and Dalia Laučkaitė-Jakimavičienė), active in 1990–2000.

***** A quote from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, referring to the sisters’ brief joy during a walk.

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Dear visitors, by attending exhibition openings, you agree that they may be filmed or photographed, and that images may be published on the Šiauliai Art Gallery website, in the media, or on social networks.