GravesendMOU PROJECTS
MOU PROJECTS is pleased to present "Gravesend," Vilte Fuller's first solo exhibition with the gallery as well as in Hong Kong. Depicting humanoid ornaments, questionable characters, fermented or preserved food, and ominous articles of everyday use, paintings featured in the exhibition highlight the artist's persistent research towards her childhood memories of rural England, her Lithuanian heritage, as well as the inexplicable seduction of horror. These recent works contain playful titles and whimsical depictions of seemingly innocent and arbitrary objects and scenes. Taunting the unreality of external reality, Fuller imagines a fake video game and explores alternative, cryptic ways of visual storytelling.
The exhibition title serves as an ode to the town of Gravesend where Fuller grew up—consolidated here is a sense of isolation she experienced and time spent drawing in her childhood years. Tracing the creaky floorboards, memorabilia trinkets, family photographs, and bold decor from the 1970s encountered during her return to her grandfather's house last year, Fuller has also noticed a curious parallel between these objects and the unkept interiors in psychological horror video games. Drawing much reference from P.T. (Playable Teaser), a horror video game that particularly fascinates her, Fuller's canvases resemble film storyboards for a mysterious plot with recurring characters and motifs.
Hinted at its title, Press Play to Start (all works 2023) serves as a loading screen that lures one into this strangely choreographed game. Across three panels, the tentacle-like brushstrokes morph and amalgamate a melting dolphin ornament with an alien-appearing character. The dolphin ornament, an actual object Fuller found in the family house, is spotted elsewhere next to a ghoulish character lurking in the dark (Melting Dolphin Ornament on Living Room Table) and then again in front of a desolate landscape (Melting Dolphin Ornament by the Window). Certain works are also specifically painted from a first-person point of view in order to enhance the effects of one participating in a horror video game, urging one to find a way out (I don't remember metal feeling so soft and I have to leave this room) as one seeps through a variety of bizarrely animated and repeating adornments as if caught in an endless loop.
Looking into Lithuanian folklore and storytelling to interweave with her own story creation, Fuller discovers that the representation of Eastern Europe in British mass media seems to place the emphasis on rather trivial things, including soviet-appearing interior design, porcelain ornaments (dolphins in particular), and the fermentation of food. These motifs are incorporated onto Fuller's canvases in an uncanny yet humorous manner—sometimes as the eccentric pairing of ham and cappuccino (Ham Cappuccino on Living Room Table) and other times a character who simultaneously reminds one of stingray and medusa (I don't think I want to eat any of the shellfish in this house).
Mercurial soaps, pouting gherkins, and a nightmarish toilet that one cannot seem to escape from—Fuller's works are not here to please. Hers is an audacious practice which, via wickedness and absurdity, allows us to meander through an eerily fantastical world filled with wonderful mischiefs without apprehension. In this game called "Gravesend," the deadening effects of the ordinary can indeed be defied and glamorized.
Opening Reception:
Sat 6.24.2023 | 2–6 pm
More Details: https://mouprojects.com/en/exhibitions/gravesend-vilte-fuller
