Artist Rasa Flay has been a world traveler since 2000 when she left her native Lithuania for the United States. A symbiosis of natural and urban environments has always interested the artist, and an experience of constantly changing her living environment has been supplying a wealth of inspirations to create photographic works and lacquer paintings. In her artistic practice Rasa explores how man made echoes nature made while observing a perpetual rhythm of change ever present in all living and inanimate things.
A discovery of the Vietnamese lacquer painting in 2013 was a highlight of Rasa’s artistic career. Rasa immersed herself in the world of lacquer art while studying with the prominent Vietnamese artist and a former professor at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts, Le Kim My and Japanese lacquer artist and teacher Yuki Namba. Looking at her paintings it is obvious that she completely fell in love with the process of creating lacquer work, when layers upon layers of lacquer colored with pigments or highlighted with inlay of eggshell, river, or sea shell magically reveal itself after the final sanding of the piece. A new, sometimes unexpected version of the initial idea appears within the painting, bringing an element of surprise to its creator and the viewer.