Fold #5, 2024
Fold #5 seems to exist between two states. The ceramic volume is attached to the wall, yet it does not behave like a solid object. The black surface folds, tilts and curls forwards, opening out from a plane into a three-dimensional form.
The fine ribbed texture follows the movement of the surface, making each fold visible. Light and shadow fall between the lines, enhancing the depth of the form. A curious duality emerges: the work has the hardness and weight of ceramic, while at the same time suggesting something soft and fluid.
The title Fold refers to the action embodied in the object. Folding is not simply a way of shaping the material, but a means of creating space. The plane becomes volume; the wall becomes part of the sculpture. As elsewhere in Butkute’s work, movement is not literally performed, but made perceptible through the form itself and through the way the object relates to its surroundings.
Butkute begins with the physical properties of ceramic: weight, mass and gravity. In Fold #5, these qualities seem constantly on the verge of shifting. What is heavy and solid acquires an unexpected lightness; what appears flat takes on a spatial dimension.