Drawing "Human observing the sea" by Kazimiera Zimblytė, circa 1980 Violeta Bubelytė (born 1956, Vilnius) is a pioneering Lithuanian photographer, widely regarded as the first woman in Lithuania to use her own nude body as the exclusive subject of long-term photographic self-investigation. Since 1981, she has developed a distinctive practice of analogue nude self-portraiture, using multiple exposures, theatrical gestures and carefully controlled framing to merge intimacy with eroticism, vulnerability with defiance. Her works often oscillate between lyricism and melancholy, speaking about the passing of time, the fragility of the body and the persistence of self-scrutiny. Over the decades, Bubelytė has become a central figure in Lithuanian contemporary photography, not only through her aesthetic vocabulary but through the cultural implications of her work — destabilising norms of beauty, challenging censorship and refusing objectification by claiming absolute authorship over the body that the camera depicts. Her career has been accompanied by extensive exhibition history both in Lithuania and internationally, and her works are now held in several major public collections, including MO Museum, the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, the Lewben Art Foundation and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Recognition of Bubelytė’s contribution to Lithuanian culture has been significant. In 2014 she received the Culture and Art Prize of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, and in 2023 she was awarded the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize — the highest state honour for artistic achievement. She has also been a member of the International Federation of Photographic Art (FIAP) since 1999, holding the status of artist-photographer within that organisation. In recent years, Bubelytė’s work has drawn increasing international attention. In 2024, her photographs were presented at Paris Photo in the exhibition The Forms of Things, The Forms of Skulls, Forms of Love, curated by Sonia Voss. This presentation underscored the relevance and urgency of Bubelytė’s long-term self-portrait practice, revealing it not simply as an exploration of the body but as a sustained reflection on autonomy, desire and the emotional architecture of looking.

Artist Name

Kazimiera Zimblytė

Ships From

Vilnius