Urte Janus

Urte Janus is an artist from Lithuania currently living in London. She explores the corporeal relationships between bodies and their environments in sculptural installations, writing and video work. After initially gaining a degree in photography, she taught herself sculpture and video making. 

Material exploration plays a vital role in Urte's practice. She is interested in the materiality of things up until the individual chemical components that constitute them. She blends raw elements such as gelatine, charcoal, ash, limestone, natural binders, liquids and acids to build pieces that can later disintegrate back into their surroundings. Her sculptures usually live the life of their own - they change, develop or consume themselves over time. 

Urte is interested in the world beyond human worlds, in the aliveness and dynamics of inanimate matter, questioning what life and non-life is. Rocks, bones, minerals, debris, and various chemical substances are the main protagonists of her work. They are not dead or passive but operate as active agents capable of changing the histories and destinies of landscapes and bodies that inhabit them.