Small Pleasures

“As an artist who often paints along the A5 scale, I was compelled to go to significantly smaller dimensions for the first time for the ‘Small Pleasures’ auction. During the creative process, I became captivated by the playing card sized work’s capacity to hold strong significance and emotional weight in such a condensed form. As it’s something you can fit in your hand or keep in your wallet, its physical intimacy gives it an immeasurable weight. Whilst painting, I imagined it as a little icon of the subjective experience of ennui or ‘acedia’, which implies more of a spiritual type of restlessness, during quarantine.” - Simona Orentaite, 2021

Simona’s work is an exploration of imaginary worlds and the spiritual realm. Painting intuitively with oils and watercolours, she unearths remnants of the natural world from the psyche, allowing anthropomorphic figures and organic forms to emerge through subsequent layers of paint. Sometimes the subjects coalesce into each other and their surroundings, blurring the lines between different life forms and states of matter. Through the use of watercolour, solid and fluid, human and organic, become one. The flow of water catalyses the incidental nature of these appearances, dissolving and uniting their boundaries. In this ambiguity she attempts to expose the vulnerability of human existence with themes of spirituality, connection, love, and loss.

Accolades

Simona Orentaite (b.1998 Lithuania) is an emerging artist based in London, undertaking a BA in Fine Art at the City and Guilds of London Art School. She has recently exhibited at The Tub Gallery and has been featured in Horizon Magazine.

@simona_orent