Žydrė Ridulytė: Meditation in Silence

by Lijana Šatavičiūtė

The work by the textile artist Žydrė Ridulytė came to wider publicity around 2002, in the wake of the international felt symposium held in Lithuania. Subsequently, a fragment of her felt masonry was featured on the front cover of the Dailė art magazine. Until then, mostly using materials as pieces of wood washed out by the sea, or sea grass woven into the texture of linen, dyed by the ancient ikat technique, to compose miniature structures, she remained subdued by other textile artists. Her work is intellectual and rational, with no attempt to illustrate an idea yet based on conceptualization of specific techniques, as weaving and patterning or experiments with different dies and acids. Of mention is her copper and cotton thread woven piece Levels (2003) that demonstrates the enlarged possibilities of the weaving technique. The endless formal opportunities of weaving in metallic thread are further explored in The Sign. A relief mask of a female face emerging in this particular piece manifests a perfect marriage of tradition and modernity.    
The artist finds inspiration in the heritage of the local art of the loom. On the other hand, she does not shun pop culture images. These, she interprets in a refined and elegant fashion, as seen in her avant-garde pieces such as Things Let Loose (1998), and the installation Newspaper Ducks (2003). The felt technique for the artist is not an issue of fashion.  For Ridulytė it proved to be a perfect vehicle for her unique vision and mature artistic ideas. Her personal experience and inspiration from archaeology and history merged to produce the multi-faceted piece The Fragment of the Wall, a felt masonry, rich in historic allusions, modern by its concept and professional as far as mastery in the textile art goes.