Unity of angels | Nomeda Čiurlionytė

The painter Nomeda Čiurlionytė
EXHIBITION “UNITY OF ANGELS”

The angel, as a sign of the spiritual world and protector, guardian, and carrier of light and peace, is often visible in the paintings of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. When the woman artist visited the Čiurlionis House in Vilnius and talked about the forthcoming exhibition there, she had to admit that it was only now that she had noticed the unexpected parallel between the angels in her oeuvre and that of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. Although the angel as a symbol is not a stranger to Nomeda Čiurlionytė’s various creative periods, it is exactly in recent years that it has become a predominant theme, carrying a very clear charge and meaning.

Each of us is experiencing the war in Ukraine differently, and this exhibition is the artist’s personal reaction to the events in her occupied homeland. When Ukrainian soldiers asked her to create amulets to wear in their protective vests, she painted guardian angels who went to the front. These angels took on the symbol of a woman: a mother, a wife, a daughter. They wait patiently for their men to return from the war zone victorious. A distinctive feature is the wings of the angels, which take center stage in the compositions of the artworks. The angels are trying to use their wings to drive away and cleanse the darkness that descends on innocent people. These angels have no facial features, as the main focus of the paintings is the white, energetic wings of angels. When people are at war, when rivers of blood are spilling, the beautiful angels unite silently and ask us: what are you doing, people?

Most of the works in the exhibition were created in the extremely turbulent period between 2022 and 2024, when the war in Ukraine began, was, and still is ongoing.