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Arts & Communication Textile agency in art

a computer loom, taking on an abstract form, eventually Mary and was stunned to see her smile in the photo,
transformed the impression into a monumental curtain, which inspired her to create a series of tapestries.
promising a mysterious unfolding of meanings. Surprisingly, the smile that she captured seemed to
The tapestry series “St. Mary’s Rugs” and “Smiling” have slipped off the surface of the burnt sculpture in
are also artworks woven from visual quotations. The the chapel due to the effects of the environment and
idea for the first cycle was sparked by an impression was only captured in that artwork.
of the Virgin standing on the right side of the altar Exploring folds, textile metaphors also arise from
at the Vytautas Magnus Church in Kaunas. The artist unexpected semantic connotations. This is how the series
describes her initial creative impulse as follows: “I took “May It Unfold Nicely” (the literal meaning of a Lithuanian
a closer look at the small sculpture, about 40 cm high, saying “Geros kloties,” used to wish someone good luck)
with very skillfully carved drapery, which seemed to was formed, conceptualizing the enigmatic links between
move for a moment as I looked at it. That’s what led the meanings of laying and unfolding, the shroud and
me to the series of works” (personal communication). good luck. This encouraged the creation of various visual
The same happened with the “Smiling” (Figure 4) series staging (“Sofa,” “Painting,” “Lamp,” 2018; “Mary Flying
when the artist went to see the unique wood carvings Back to Earth,” “Mary Flying Away from Earth,” 2020),
of the Kulautuva church, which had been destroyed unfolding metaphors of the incessant interactions between
by fire. She photographed the sculpture of the Virgin the surface and the deep. The series “May It Unfold Nicely,”
which won a silver medal at the 2018 Riga Textile and
Fiber Art Triennial “Identity,” became the basis for her solo
exhibition in Vilnius in 2020. In the words of curator Agnė
Narušytė:
“the artist has fun forming a fold as a pause for the
imagination, which itself begins to weave the fabrics
of meanings. She tangles the differences between
inside and outside. Our bodies (and raggery) protect
not only the inside but also the outside that is folded
into the inside – plants, animals, minerals, the
elements, culture, technology, scientific inventions,
history, language itself, each other, relationships, and
communication. Once we are folded, we become
innovative entities, a different kind of life, perhaps not
quite pure human beings. Have we ever been pure? It
does not matter when you realize that you are limitless
Figure 3. Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė, Penelope’s rag. Digital Jacquard
weaving, 278 × 210 cm, 2013. © Monika Žaltė. when you take such diversity and the multiplicity of
time inside you. For philosophers, the fold expresses
the infinite finitude of the agent and of anything that
can be contemplated, of memory and the expectation
of the future, of the uncertainty between being and
non-being” (unpublished annotation, 2020).
Indeed, the works reveal the boundlessness of the
folds of time. Moments captured by the camera become
the basis of textile artworks that return fabric to the
archetypal imagination, wrapping an individual moment
of experience in a cloak of universality.

4. The transmediality of textiles
Among the creators who inspired Žaltauskaitė Grašienė’s
textile thinking are the works by artists who conceptualized
“soft media:” Magdalena Abakanowicz’s tapestries
Figure 4. Monika Žaltauskaitė Grašienė, Smiling. Exposition view, 2016. called “abakans,” Annette Messanger’s stuffed sculptures
© Monika Žaltė. and fabric installations, Louise Bourjois’ artworks that

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1867