A few months ago, Rosalind Nashashibi initiated a conversation with Elena Narbutaitė, painting her according to a portrait by Berthe Morisot. In turn Elena, who beforehand didn't paint often, began sketching her friend, later turning the drawing into a watercolour. Several mutual portraits have since taken shape between the two artists, «like a domino.»

We recently screened two of Rosalind’s films on our website. They manifested the encounter between Elena and Rosalind, and their friendship. The films gave us an opportunity to begin a conversation, to meet Rosalind, and hear about the portraits they’d made of each other. Soon, an intuition emerged to bring the paintings within the exhibition Between Ears, New Colours, in conversation with existing works by Elena and Hagar. As we await their arrival, we publish these two images, photographs of paintings taken by two phones.

This new series follows a previous pictural dialogue between the two artists, published in the artist book All things are done by money* (2019). Their friend Raimundas Malašauskas, who contributed to the publication, had addressed them a letter, for the purposes of which they renamed themselves Rosalena. 

Richard Neyroud & Thomas Patier

* https://www.secession.at/en/shop/produkt/rosalind-nashashibi/