Birutė Zokaitytė was born in Vilnius, in 1968. She studied graphic design at the Vilnius Academy of Arts (1987-1995). After graduating, she interned at the F. Mazarelli Graphic Center in Belgium (2002). Now, she teaches at the Vilnius Justinas Vienožinskis Art School.
Her artistic practice blurs the frontier between graphic design and pictorial art. The attraction towards graphics is inherited from her mother, the famous graphic artist Alfreda Venslovaitė-Gintalienė. But whereas her mother was in the sphere of design, the daughter considers herself an artist: ‘Now that the boundaries between the arts have blurred, when painting can be graphic and graphics can be picturesque, I treat myself simply as an artist’.
As an artist, she embraces the freedom of her generation (which counts the likes of Eglė Vertelkaitė, Eglė Kuckaitė and Laisvydė Šalčiūtė). Subjectivity, emotionality and authenticity are all injected in Zokaitytė’s artistic observations.
Observation is a key term, as ocular perception is an important framing device of Zokaitytė’s approach. Some of her subjects are being watched without them knowing, putting the spectator in the position of a voyeur. This effect is accentuated with the circular frames, which create the illusion of observing through ‘binoculars’. Some observations are confrontational dialogues of stares, the subject donning the roles of the observed and the observer.
A common theme in this observational situation are women. Indeed, Zokaitytė depicts female subjects and female spaces: ‘I am interested in a traditional woman,’ she explains, ‘I try to step back so far that peeling potatoes becomes as valuable and exciting an activity as exploring cosmic bodies’.
This sense of pictorial dialogue has been carried over in the artist’s side activity as a book illustrator, where her intricate and highly detailed style lends itself to fairy tales and fantasies. Zokaitytė has illustrated such books as Astrid Lindgren’s Brothers Lionheart, Nijolė Kepenienė’s The Most Fashionable Crocodile, as well as Lithuanian folk tales.
Zokaitytė lives and works in Vilnius.
