Spotlight

Spotlight Artist Vilte Fuller

Championed by Anna Woodward
Visual Arts
The Wick Culture - Job Satisfaction Part 2, 2023 Oil and beeswax on canvas 62 x 30.5 cm
24 3/8 x 12 in.
Unique
Above  Job Satisfaction Part 2, 2023 Oil and beeswax on canvas 62 x 30.5 cm 24 3/8 x 12 in. Unique
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The Wick Culture - Vilte Fuller at Brooke Benington
Above  Vilte Fuller at Brooke Benington
Interview
Vilte Fuller
13 December 2023
Interview
Vilte Fuller
13 December 2023
Our spotlight champion this week is the artist Anna Woodward, who creates mystical worlds in which the utopian and dystopian collide. Her multi-layered paintings – which have been exhibited around the globe – draw you into surreal environments in which nothing is quite what it seems. So it comes as no surprise that she should choose to champion another painter for The Wick who delights in creating scenes with a sinister edge.

Woodward spotlights Vilte Fuller, a London-based, Lithuanian artist whose solo exhibition Corporate Horrors is on show at Brooke Benington until 20 January 2024. Keyboards, calculators and tangled limbs populate her canvases in this new body of work, which explores the connections between technology, the human form and the influence of workplace culture. It is Fuller’s third solo exhibition this year, proof of her hard graft and “incredible dedication”, as Woodward puts it.
Anna Woodward continues: “I was instantly drawn into the unique worlds that Vilte represents in her practice, as well as the way she manipulates oil paint, pushing it beyond its traditional boundaries.”

Body parts in Fuller’s paintings seem to want to break free from their canvases, while her collaged layers of keyboards and other tech devices deliberately discombobulate the eye. Adds Woodward: “In Corporate Horrors, she has challenged herself further by using a grid technique while mirroring the colour palette of the corporate world, from the greys of office carpets to the blue and white of a Boggi Milano work shirt.”

In Diseased NSFW, the actual shirt is collaged with her painting of fingers fumbling with unidentifiable body parts, while in Control V, she evokes the tones of cold blue steel and safety glass green.

Says Fuller: “I am heavily influenced by the aesthetics of horror films of the 1990s and 2000s, particularly the blue colour gradients that characterised the cinematic styles of David Fincher and David Cronenberg.”

Corporate Horrors takes her work into new territory. “This series of work signifies a departure for me as I move towards less figurative painting and explore new themes,” she explains. “I’m delving into the allure of corporate narratives in the media and the conversion of mundane settings into evocative displays of contemporary life.”

As a full-time artist without a conventional routine, she has an almost voyeuristic fascination with the regimented office workday. For Fuller, it both attracts and repels, as seen in her entrancing yet unsettling images.

About the champion

The Wick Culture - Anna Woodward

Artist Anna Woodward creates fantasy worlds that sit between utopia and dystopia – a space where biomorphic forms grow freely yet there is still evidence of the human made. Her paintings have been exhibited internationally, including at Sherbet Green in London; Duarte Sequeira Gallery, Portugal; and L.U.P.O, Italy. She is also the co-founder of Good Eye Projects, a London residency for artists.

“I was instantly drawn into the unique worlds that Vilte represents in her practice, as well as the way she manipulates oil paint, pushing it beyond its traditional boundaries.”

Anna Woodward

Place of Birth

Klaipeda, Lithuania

Education

BA (hons) in Painting & Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art, 2018

Awards, Accolades

Shortlisted for the 2017 HIX Award

Current exhibitions

Solo: Corporate Horrors, Brooke Benington, London, until 20 January 2024
Group: The Unlimited Dream Company II, Hannah Barry Gallery, London, until 16 December 2023

Spiritual guides, Mentors

This is a bit of a cliché but my spiritual guide is Frida Kahlo. I enjoy rewatching documentaries about her life as I start new projects, as it helps me rationalise my creative decision making. So much of my work offers easter eggs to my current state of mind and current life events and experiences.

Advice

Be kind, trust your gut and don’t forget to let your hair down.


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Dates
01 December 2023 — 20 January 2024
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