Ruta Butkute – MOVEMENT EXPOSED GALLERY SPACE

Biography

Ruta Butkute questions the boundaries of the medium of sculpture and explores innovation in materials. She also makes videos and performances. During exhibitions, she shows the interrelationships that can arise between media to emphasise qualities such as movement, chance, and the presence of and interaction with the human body. These notions also play an essential role in the creation of her works. This dynamic and partly unpredictable process has no fixed outcome. She uses her experiences with the constant exchange between process and presentation to find ways to appeal to the viewer’s senses and to introduce a new, interactive sculptural dimension.

Ruta Butkute [1984, Kaunas, Lithuania] studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Her work has recently been exhibited at Bradwollf & Partners in Amsterdam and the Van Doesburghuis in Meudon, France, and in past years at the Kaaistudios in Brussels, the Rietveld Huis Cordemeyer in Apeldoorn and the Teruhiro Yanagihara gallery in Osaka, Japan.

Her participation in the International Wood Firing Kohila Symposium in Estonia last summer (2025), provided her with the opportunity to explore new techniques. Previously, Butkute was artist-in-residence at the EKWC (European Ceramic Work Centre) in Oisterwijk (2023) and the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Centre, Skealskor in Denmark (2019). Prior to that, she participated in residencies in France, Belgium, Japan, Spain, Austria and the United States.

In 2018, the publication Spell Action about the work of Ruta Butkute was released. This was followed in 2022 by How To Make Sculpture Move, in collaboration with writer Emily Kocken.

After Tumble (2021) and Bound (2023), glazed spirals dove grey (2025) is Butkute’s third exhibition at Movement Exposed Gallery Space in Utrecht. In 2024, Butkute also organised the second edition of her art platform Temporal Choreographies there.