The Nude that looks back: self-images by Violeta Bubelytė

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Autoportretas; Nuoga figūra; Nuogumas; Peržiūra; Revizija; Socialinių vaidmenų kaita; Socialinių vaidmenų pasikeitimas; Violeta Bubelytė; Žvilgsnis; Change in social roles; Gaze; Nude; Revision; Self-portrait; Violeta Bubelytė.

ENVioleta Bubelytė (b.1956) has been making nude self-portraits in Lithuania continuously for three decades, commencing in 1981. Despite her efforts to avoid verbalizing the visual works that she creates, her images appear to display an analytical approach to art history. One can also relate them to social changes in gender representation and values which the artist has witnessed and, in a way, predicted. Bubelyt_e’s self-images make an immediate impact – by evoking mechanisms of visual memory invaded by oddness, which comes from the gaze that she returns to the viewer. Her pictures contain elements of spiritual quest and of understanding her identity – which have been widely noticed by critics. I see her also as a rebel and as someone who deconstructs visual culture by, in a literal sense, facing the patriarchal gaze – and I argue that, by doing this, she also changes the very dynamics of looking. The artist came ‘out of nowhere’ – she did not fit into the official tradition of Lithuanian photography nor into the new wave of photography which denied that tradition. Full recognition of her input to the field of photography has come slowly and with difficulty. doi

• "Écriture feminine" fotografijoje : Veronika Šleivytė ir Violeta Bubelytė / Agnė Narušytė. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis 2011, t. 62, p. 81-103.
• Nuobodulio estetika Lietuvos fotografijoje / Agnė Narušytė. Vilnius : Vilniaus dailės akademijos leidykla, 2008. 302 p.