In this autobiographical painting series, I explore the impact of the Soviet occupation on me, a child growing up in Lithuania. Each painting in this series is based on my memories and my family’s archives.

I belong to the last generation of “Soviet school kids.” We started as Lenin´s grandchildren and later became Pioneers, who were encouraged to be “always prepared” to fight for the principles of Communism.

In reality, I was part of a group of faceless kids who were forced into uniforms – and forced into uniformity – to fit within a propaganda fueled frame of an authoritarian regime. A frame with no color. Always just black and white.

We did what we were told to do. And if not, punishment and corrective action was the result. The long-ago memories, represented by this series, remain in me.

To this day, I freeze whenever I see or feel the shadows of that occupational child in me. That child is afraid to share her opinions. She is afraid to be herself. Instead, she defaults to playing the role that society expects of her.

In 1990, Lithuania was the first of fifteen occupied Republics to declare independence from the Soviet Union. Today, Putin claims that the collapse of the Soviet Union was Russia’s greatest disaster.