On June 27th Meno Parkas Gallery (Rotušės sq. 27, Kaunas) has opened the exhibition Within a kiss by Portuguese artist Ana Rebordão.

Ana Rebordão works with staged settings where she herself is always the protagonist, acquiring versatile personas. In this exhibition she presents two bodies of works produced between 2018 and 2025.

In the project dentro (within) 2018-2022 various iconographies converge to comment on transcendental and mundane issues. There is a reference to the religious figure of Virgin Mary - as an universal image of a mother - to comment on women’s place and status in society. Falling into sink or pushed into a shopping cart, the projections on the ceiling are phantasmagoria, while the projection on the ground depicts women in their absurd occupations.

Alike what the artist does in other bodies of work, in Within, Rebordão creates tableaux vivants using herself as either the sole or the main figure. Her work focuses on the intimate female sphere, capturing her body in scenes scarce in movement and objects. Images are strongly staged through light to place them in different periods of art history. It is in this way that Rebordão crystallises repetitive, significant and, for many, invisible events in the present.

Sometimes it ends with a kiss 2022-2025, Ana Rebordão’s latest work, reflects on the power relations that exist in the family space: in the dominant and seductive mother, in the woman who sterilises and mutilates the fish, and in the daughters who suck and play a pathetic game.

The diptych shows various women talking to themselves away from the noise of the world. However, a gaming screen imposes itself on the image interfering with the silence. Other women appear, or perhaps, it is always the same woman. They observe each other - will there be privacy?

These slow and unresponsive experiences show an effort to deal with the meaning and flow of History, that is, living life as a female. Breaking taboos about unconditional maternal love, or about a mother's power over her daughters. Ana Rebordão’s absurd performances are a coherent way to set-up an enigma, or a sense of trauma. She gives a sharp voice to her silent female characters. One can hear them, thanks to the artist’s particular sense of humor.