Regina Šulskytė. My Time

Curonian Spit History Museum (Pamario st. 53)

"My Time" – the time in which I perceive myself

The works of the artist, who has been holding solo exhibitions for more than twenty years, are a coherent analysis of her personal relationship with existence. Time belongs to those phenomena that should be analysed from several angles. Above all, as a time in which, without any effort or will, you find yourself in contact with the outside world. Into which you are born and find the traces of the past left by someone else. You grow up with them, later taking some of them as your own, while others remain as a testimony to a former life. In the meantime, there emerges a personal time which expands and changes with you. But it remains long after you are gone, becoming a trace of the past for generations to come. It will have to be picked up by the newcomers or left behind as yet another reminder of the past. It's a cycle that includes everyone indiscriminately. On the one hand, this time happens irrespective of you. On the other – you are one of those who influence it, shape it and leave it the way it becomes. /../

Regina's photographs feature her friends, parents or close ones, sometimes strangers she meets and passers-by she observes from afar. They depict the environment to which she is connected in one way or another, either directly or through family history. Not only the time spent, but also the time inherited. In between the skilfully juxtaposed snapshots of photographic reality, there are occasional "cleared up" insertions – moments of oppressive silence, pauses in the fabric of photography and the artist's personal time. Several stories are developed in parallel, not only complementing each other but also occasionally intertwining. R. Šulskytė herself willingly participates in the stories that are told. She is a connecting link, a point of reference from which her story begins and at which it ends. Without widely opening the door to her personal life, the author remains eager to introduce her family and its past. She combines her parents' present and past in a single work, substituting (or inserting) additional details that balance the impression of the documentary nature of photography, which at the same time provide her with visual concepts that she can use to express her thoughts most aptly. It is no longer about her parents, her past or present life, but about the feelings, states and experiences that she has had when in contact with the time spent.

Space and time continue to be Šulskytė's points of departure, out of which she derives her states, and constructs convincing pictures of experiences and feelings. It is obvious that it is very important for the author to get her message across clearly and persuasively. However, she is not commanding. Regina allows for a number of possible ways of constructing an individual version of her work (or self-identification).