Adelina Sasnauskaitė is a Lithuanian born painter and tattoo artist living and working in London. She holds a BA in Illustration and Visual Media from the London College of Communication. Her work has been exhibited at a variety of shows across London and Manchester. Her artistic practice explores feminine identity and the feeling of ‘being watched’.

We, as spectators, find ourselves in front of two-dimensional bodies that expose themselves in various choreographies for as long as we want to explore them. The situation is familiar, we are used to commercials in which smooth, sleek bodies glistening in the sunlight of the studio try to convince us that we want to have what they have. But in Adelinas’ paintings, there’s something slightly off about this situation.

In her works, women come first. Femininity is performed in a variety of forms and angles. She plays with the aesthetics of 80s magazines and posters, elements of bling culture and adult entertainment, mixing symbols from the Eastern and Western worlds. Delving into the notion of ‘being watched’, Adelina replaces the smooth photographic bodies we are used to with the ones we would see hidden in a teenager’s locker – drawn in markers, white spaces left in some places, in bright bubbly colours. This twist makes Adelina’s works satirical, turning the usual depiction of femininity into a constantly redrawn cartoon.

Produced by The Good Neighbour in 2023
Questions: Justė Kostikovaitė
Text edit: Aistė Marija Stankevičiūtė
Filmed by Elena Reimerytė
Supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture
Partners: UK Lithuanian Youth Association and the British-Lithuanian Society