Indrė Šerpytytė

• Name — Indrė Šerpytytė • Born — 1983 • Birthplace — Palanga, Lithuania • Field — Contemporary Art, Fine Art Photography • Training — Royal College of Art and University of Brighton • Works — 150 mph, 2 Seconds of Colour, (1944 – 1991), Drancy, A State of Silence • Awards — The Arts Foundation, Rencontres d’Arles, Magenta Foundation Flash Forward, National Media Museum, Hoopers Gallery, Metro Imaging, Fujifilm Distinction Award, Terry O’Neill Award, Jerwood Foundation • Website — indre-serpytyte.com

Šerpytytė was born in 1983 in Palanga, Lithuania and moved to London at the age of 14. She received her MA in photography from The Royal College of Art, London and her BA in editorial photography from the University of Brighton.

Former NKVD - MVD - MGB - KGB Buildings (2009 - 2015, ongoing) centres on the after-effects of World War II in Lithuania. These black and white images tell an almost forgotten story of the domestic conflicts of war, in which people were interrogated and tortured in what were once family homes. Rather than representing the buildings themselves, or showing the inhabitants or victims directly, Šerpytytė uses commissioned, hand-carved wooden models based on archival research and site visits to comment on both the physical and humanitarian scale of the conflict and to recall events that have faded over time. From the same series, Forest Brothers (2009) looks at the Lithuanian forest as a place both to hide and to disappear as it revisits the environments once home to the period's most active resistance force.

The large scale photographic palettes of 2 Seconds of Colour arise from a Google Image search for the term ‘Isis beheadings’. The works present the patchwork of rectangular placeholders automatically generated while the page is loading, their colours extracted from the 'black of the executioner’s garments, the orange of the victim’s jumpsuit [or] the blue of the sky’. Responding to the oversaturated media landscape in which they find themselves, the images 'seeking to break the closed circuit between violence that is thoughtlessly executed and violence that is thoughtlessly consumed'.

The 150 mph paintings depart from images of individuals jumping from New York's World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. Each image’s human subject has been removed leaving the architecture itself as sole "witness and unintentional memorial."

• The Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, London, 2009. • Camera 16, Milan, 2010 • Vilniaus Fotografijos Galerija, Vilnius, 2011 • The Photographers' Gallery, London, 2010 • Ffotogallery, Penarth, 2013; • Kraków Photomonth Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków (MOCAK), 2015

• The Photographers' Gallery, London • Victoria and Albert Museum, London • Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France, 2011 • National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, 2013 • Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, UK • Conflict, Time, Photography, Tate Modern, London, 2014–2015. • Museum Folkwang, Essen, 2015 • Tbilisi Photo Festival • Ocean of Images, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, 2015–2016

Indrė Šerpytytė is recorded with the occupation photographer. Recorded as artist and photographer.

• (1944 – 1991). London: self-published, 2010.. Includes an interview with Martin Barnes and a text by Nigel Rolfe.

• Pokario Istorijos / Post-war Stories. Kaunas, Lithuania: Lithuanian Photographers’ Association Kaunas Department, 2015. By Šerpytytė ("Forest Brothers: Former NKVD-MVD-MGB-KGB Buildings"), Claudia Heinermann ("Wolf Children") and Michal Iwanowski ("Clear of People").. With a text by Sonya Winterberg ("Wolf Children"). Published to accompany an exhibition. English and Lithuanian language.

Šerpytytė 's work is held in the following public collections: • Victoria and Albert Museum, London • Roberts Institute of Art, London • The collection of Jay Jopling, London • Derwent London, London