On June 3 at 7 p.m., the Rupert Art Center (15 Mindaugo St., Vilnius) will host the opening of artist Viktorija Rybakova’s solo exhibition, ‘Gestures of Fear.’ The show closes on June 30.

To begin, a film examines a series of emotive vignettes, challenging the audience to see what she does. Then, a series of large-format panels isolate, freeze, and overlay them as a sequence. Juxtaposing them with similar motifs sourced from historical and cultural research, she forms a complete taxonomy of fear without ever revealing their causes or faces. The internal, emotional mechanisms of the mind are vividly illustrated, even though the structure housing the chemical power plant driving the action is never seen.

‘Viktorija is observant and focused, translating her un-usual associations into morphing manifestations of watch-ing. Her work reflects that curiosity. In the past, the osten-sible topics were broad: exhibition design, book smuggling, Shibari communities, and Christian erotics. Here, her fixation is on the unvoiced language of hands. While the subjects changed, the underlying motives have not. Each of these experiments is an attempt to break into the back doors of the brain, to comprehend cognitive architecture’, says the curator JL Murtaugh.

The exhibition is the culmination of Viktorija’s MA thesis work at the Graphic Department of the Vilnius Academy of Art, and her Rupert residency in March 2026.

Viktorija Rybakova is a research-based artist, graphic and spatial designer, with a background in architecture. Her practice combines academic and artistic fields, with a focus on artists’ books and embodied knowledge practices. She currently works at the Vilnius University Library as a graphic art collection curator and researcher, while completing a Master’s Degree in the Graphic Arts Department at the Vilnius Academy of Arts.

Rybakova previously exhibited her work at Fundação Iberê Camargo (Porto Alegre PT), Kunstverein München, Videobrasil (2015 and 2017, São Paulo BR), the Baltic Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin DE), Kunstinstituut Melly (fka Witte de With, Rotterdam NL), Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (Warsaw PL), Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius LT), and Tallinn Art Hall (Tallinn EE), amongst others. She lives in Vilnius.

Curator: JL Murtaugh
Communication: Aistė Marija Stankevičiūtė
Technician: Matas Šatūnas
Photography: Laurynas Skeisgiela
Lithuanian language editor Evelina Zenkutė.
Design: Jana Sofie Liebe and Augustinas Milkus.

Special thanks to Monika Lipsič, Viktorija Šiaulytė, and master’s thesis supervisors Marija Marcelionytė-Paliukė and Jurgita Ludavičienė. 

Rupert’s programmes are funded by the Vilnius Municipality and the Lithuanian Council for Culture, with additional partner support from INVL. Viktorija Rybakova’s project is supported by the Vilnius Academy of Arts.