In Waxing Crescent #2, Ruta Butkute explores the possibilities of porcelain as a painting surface. The circular form initially appears clear and contained, yet the accumulation of paint turns it into an image that remains in constant flux. Dark, horizontal movements are crossed by bands of grey, pink and black, while yellow, red and green emerge towards the lower edge, settling between the other layers. In places, the white of the porcelain is left exposed, creating a sense of openness within the image.
Butkute does not simply paint onto the surface; she seems to work with the material itself as part of the painting’s development. Brushstrokes follow the curve of the plate, overlap and disappear beneath subsequent layers, only to re-emerge elsewhere. Dense and translucent passages alternate, keeping the surface in motion. Nothing appears entirely fixed.
The title Waxing Crescent refers to the crescent moon, yet the work does not read as a depiction of the moon. Instead, the circle becomes a framework for a painting process in which form, colour and movement continually shift. A dark mass may briefly suggest a horizon or a fragment of landscape, only to dissolve again into paint and gesture.
It is precisely the tension between the solid, almost still presence of the porcelain and the movement of the paint that gives the work its particular character. The circle has no obvious beginning or end; the eye continues to move across its surface. What initially appears as an image remains, at the same time, a process of becoming and disappearing.