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| Contemporary Lithuanian painting: from projection point to the shine Milda Žvirblīte, Art Critic | |
| Quite recently, about a decade ago, painting was an unpopular means of expression in contemporary Lithuanian art. Many artists of that time took advantage of the latest technology, took an interest in aspects of the social reality around them etc. Besides, painting was for a long time associated with myths of modernist inspiration and with expressiveness based on emotion. Painters had to decide whether to abandon this mode of expression or to change it radically. At the time, new aspects of painting had yet to be found. The crisis in painting hence became a part of the biography of every painter completing their studies. Today, the young people who are actively painting and are completing painting courses are less beset by doubts about their choice, than by reality, its representation and painting itself. They choose the surface of a rectangular canvas, a long and slow process involving manual work and loneliness, self-isolation in the workshop – as if an existential position. Self-isolation does not mean that the artist is cut off from current artistic discourse or the realities of life. In fact the trends in contemporary Lithuanian painting are similar to those of Western painting, but the strategies the artists use differ. Therefore the most suitable form of analysis of contemporary Lithuanian painting is to examine the conceptual frameworks for the creative output of individual artists. | |
 Egle Karpaviciute. Emulator. Oil on canvas. 100x97cm. 2009 | |
| One of the most outstanding contemporary painters in Lithuania is Jonas Gasiunas. His works can be deemed ‘ghostly’, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the principles of composition of his paintings are closely connected with cinematography. And the cinematic experience is, according to Jacques Derrida, completely ghostly, since the images on the screen that we recklessly enthuse about and identify with have no material foundation. Secondly, since cinematographic or ghostly understanding comes to us through direct experience – according to the philosopher – it has a psychoanalytical character. Gasiunas’s paintings usually have a double layer of images: the bottom layer comprises a painted interior or landscape, while the upper features figures or objects drawn with the smoke from a burning candle. These layers may be referred to as planes: a secondary plane (background) and a close-up or foreground. The compositional structure of both layers creates a feeling of instability, as if the images were sliding or floating on the surface of the canvas, as if they were being projected onto the canvas like film scenes onto a screen. The artwork in its entirety is created by placing one image layer over the other. The paintings are typically discomfited, rickety compositions dislodged from rectangular stability, which not only leave an impression of transient activity, but are also a continuation of the message. Moreover, the figures and objects are ephemeral and doomed to extinction because they are created from lines using candle smoke. Watching the on-screen happenings in a film we may remember what we have previously seen, but in the paintings the smoky image ‘skates past us’ over the painted background image, which could be considered to be the previous frame. In this way cinematographic strategy is transferred to the structure of the painting. The ghostly nature of the image is accented by visual disturbances: smoke dots, lines, crosses and others. On the one hand, by vertically dotting the painting’s edges, Gasiunas depicts a page torn from a notebook. On the other hand, these elements could be reminiscent of an old-fashioned postage marking, fragments from the protocols of repressive institutions, labels on worn items, underlinings of words in a text etc. The smoke personalities (an astronaut, a drug addict, a choir etc.) and objects (a radar, a loudspeaker and others) are uncommunicative and mute, as if isolated from the viewer by a glass wall (e.g. the astronaut’s giant face is hidden under his spacesuit), and covered by a smokescreen or simply shown with their back turned to the viewer (e.g. the radar). The connection between the figure or object and the background, whether it be a Soviet interior or a polar night or a landscape swathed in fog, is seemingly accidental. For the personalities or the objects the ephemeral interiors and landscapes are not the places where they operate. The place and time of their ghostly activities coincides only by chance. In certain paintings the reciprocal alignment of different figures creates situations typical of comics. The figures and objects in the foreground of the painting are enlarged, massive – but are they the most important? In a film, magnifying a detail not only gives it significance, it also allows it to move to another scene and changes the mood of the story. Quite a lot of things in cinema are of a psychoanalytical nature. It would seem that Gasiunas needs cinema just like a dream, as a zone where a meeting with reality can be avoided. The dreamer is the author of the painting, who wants to free himself from the nightmares that torment him in his dreams. According to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, in the reality of dreams we confront the ‘reality’ of desire. Dreams are an imagined construct masking the impossibility of contact with ‘reality’. ‘Reality’ can only take place in dreams, which always return and repeat themselves. Interiors, personalities and objects are constantly repeated: they travel from one painting to another. Time is measured not in consecutive intervals, but by the frequency of repetition. And repetition is used not as an aid for remembering, but rather a way of forgetting completely. The scene which repeats seemingly demonstrates the absence of memory. Gasiunas appears to be asking: does the figure protect or destroy memory? For a painter, the canvas is a screen for their subconscious, on which personal experience, autobiographical details, real life, dreams and fictions are projected. | |
 Alina Melnikova. Gotcha! The Last Mermaid. Oil on canvas. 130x100cm. 2008 | |
| The works of Ričardas Nemeikšis are also typified by a singular ephemeral principle. Almost all of his works contain the principle of representational illusion or deceptive illusion. The artist’s biography contributed to the evolution of this concept. Nemeikšis belongs to that generation of artists whose working strategy was formed at the beginning of Lithuania’s restored independence, but whose world view was shaped by Soviet experience. The past influences the artist, oppressing and black-mailing him even in the present. The artist is concerned with space which can be described using psychological terms, indicating certain states of mind: pessimism, depression, apathy. The works may also be understood as personal comments about a concrete situation. This allows to think that Nemeikšis does not avoid the social context; the space that interests him gains a social dimension. In assessing the works formally, it can be asserted that the artist only gives a hint about space in the illusory plane, yet in terms of content he is declaring the loss of illusion. Art works without illusions. Most of his works are frontal, facade-like (to be displayed by directly fixing them to the wall) and flat. They resemble landscapes for a number of reasons. Firstly, due to their structure: in large-scale works with division by horizontals or lines which flow together in perspective, and secondly: by their names, such as the Horizon series, Landscape of the Homeland (2007) and Sunset (1994–2000). The space created on paper or canvas is most often pink. Over more than a decade of work, the colour has acquired various hues, from reddish, cool copper and liquid, washed out, bleached pink to natural red. It is important that, irrespective of the selected tone of pink, the space depicted in the paintings is neither abstract nor oriented toward transcendence. It is shallow, opaque and thick, with direct references to everyday objects such as the human body or animal (e.g. pig) skins or mouths; occasionally the colour makes one think of beetroot soup. Pink uncovers a new angle of meaning – this colour is connected to the absence of illusions, depression and pessimism. The works of the Horizons series always have a landscape structure: the drawing creates the illusion of a large, broad space. However, in terms of colour (brownish, pink) the space is small and narrow. The line of the horizon is identified by human body parts: a gap between slightly opened enormous lips, a giant bottom, a hair parting etc. These bodily landscapes are somewhat eroticised. On the other hand, the artist offers a multitude of interpretations: the viewer may see a landscape or a hair parting, a plane or a large space and so on. Opportunities are created to ‘read’ and re-read the same work in new ways. Moreover, the artist does not give a definitive answer as to what the viewer ultimately sees. This principle makes the viewer doubt what they see. Thus the person looking at the work becomes the victim of their own associations, and can never be sure of what really provokes them – the artist or they themselves. The principle of deceptive illusion can be seen in the work Landscape of the Homeland. This large-format canvas of rough fabric has been left unpainted in order to make use of its natural reddish colour. The surface is carefully covered with tiny confetti stickers, which on the canvas form projection vectors that meet up in the centre of the composition, as if they were lines meeting at a distant point in accordance with the perspective principle which must create an impression of space on the plane. But when looking at the work, the viewer seems to become the subject caught in a trap, rather than being in charge of what they see (this is the position offered by classical perspective). In reflecting light, the confetti stickers create the illusion that the perspective point is not the one that is the furthest away, rather it becomes like a paddle that turns toward the viewer and hits them on the head. In reflecting light, the stickers shine, creating a dazzling sight. The object resists being viewed by the subject. Nemeikšis’ works also reveal the artist’s pessimism about their chances of surviving. He preprogrammes the processes by which the work will disintegrate in advance, ending in its total self-destruction. The artist deliberately chooses poor quality, flimsy materials – thin, crumbling paper, watercolours that crack in his cold studio in winter, if something has been glued on – fluff or confetti. Eglė Ridikaitė is also concerned about certain aspects of the past, but unlike the aforementioned artists she keeps a much greater distance between the time gone by and its relics. As an artist of the younger generation, Ridikaitė depicts Soviet-tinged daily life as something exotic. In the series Scenes that Persecute (2007–2009) she has recorded authentic interiors preserved from the past in which she herself lives – that is her mother-in-law’s apartment, stuck in a time warp. The paintings depict the ceiling of an apartment building with a Soviet-era light fitting, a kitchen wall covered with oilcloth, a TV on a stool, a child’s wooden bed, wall décor typical of the Soviet period, artificial parquet and similar. The series shows the household items and furniture which were mass produced and widely used at that time. The interiors were painted not from photos, but from memory. The paintings have been created using templates cut out from cardboard and spraypainted. The artworks are frontal, to be displayed without frames and mounts, and directly attached to the wall. Befriended, one of the paintings from this series, depicts two blankets which because of the identical colour intensity look as if they were at the same level (the blankets match the working surface and do not create the illusion of pictorial space). The artwork is covered by a layer of silicone, creating the impression of a soft and delicate surface. The blue and the red blanket preserve a powerful code of the past, and can be recognized as standardized objects of the Soviet domestic environment. The image is presented in a straightforward manner – it is flat and frontal. However, it is the simplicity that has the maximum effect. In a viewer’s subconscious or conscious mind this scene awakens memories, personal stories and the emotions linked to them, and the image begins to teem with all kinds of personal associations. Looking at this work, a viewer remembers their own experience, for example, when worn furniture was covered with blankets for aesthetic reasons, thus trying to hide or neutralise poverty. Images that persecute are universal. | |
 Egle Ridikaite. Self-portrait, Winter. Spray paint and silicone on canvas. 2008 | |
| Painting does not reflect reality, rather paintings are more or less an imprecise, artificial reproduction of reality. This is what Patricija Jurkšaitytė seems to state by overpainting well-known art reproductions from poor quality albums. The artist imitates all the characteristic features of a page from a book: from the poor quality image and its defects to the shine of light on the surface of the reproduction. Paintings in the form of a page from a book suggest that beneath the frontal image there might be hidden the whole development of the history of art. Images are frontal, reminiscent of empty shells: something that is lifeless, has no feelings, is preserved in time, and elicits a feeling of loss and emptiness. Jurkšaitytė also paints from family album photos. Her attention has been drawn to snapshots, because they cannot provide an adequate reflection of the emotions of that moment. When looking at snapshots we have no idea what happened before this fixed instant, or what was to happen afterwards – such scenes stir no memories. In other words, the artist chooses photos where the visual image is not followed by a narrative. The message is created during the painting process: emotions captured in the photo are transferred to the canvas, where they become unnatural – personal emotions become unfamiliar, while somebody else’s gradually become one’s own. By transferring the photo to canvas, the scene acquires an oddness that attracts the viewer’s attention: for example, the wide open mouth is a reminder of suffering, the faces of figures seem unnaturally pale. Dark, out of focus fragments, transferred onto the canvas, become things that create a narrative, whereas in a photo they merely function as a defect. Chance peculiarities which appear in the paintings done from photos indicate a reality that is traumatically perceived – a reality that does not exist, because it does not stir any memories. Trauma resists representation. A similar view of painting as an inanimate language is held by a painter of the younger generation, Andrius Zakarauskas. Most frequently the artist portrays himself while painting. Yet the style of painting and the brushstrokes seem as if lifeless, like a quotation, without expressiveness and strength. The space in his paintings is concentrated and artificial, functioning as a frontal plane – a sort of barrier which does not permit painting in depth. Zakarauskas as a subject persistently holds on to his narcissistic identification with the lost reality, namely, painting. The artist consciously utilises the language of painting as something defunct and exploits only ‘the skin of the language’ – a feature of those suffering melancholia for whom the mother tongue is unfamiliar, because it has lost sense and value. However, a subject who has sunk into melancholy does not admit the fact of having lost their mother, they deny it. For Agnė Jonkutė a painting serves as a tool for analysis and the process of observation instead of the goal. She is an artist-mystic who cares for conclusions which have nothing to do with logic. Jonkutė is concerned with spaces which generate a physical effect, to which a body reacts. Her paintings contain much emptiness. Banal, contentless scenes have been formed by the modern media, however Jonkutė’s emptiness is closer to daily life, which sometimes takes on a claustrophobic feeling similar to hallucination. The growing throng of younger generation painters are offering the greatest variety of painting concepts. Eglė Karpavičiūtė and Alina Melnikova are the authors of several interesting strategies. The latter strives to create an impression of visual pleasure. She is also interested in issues relating to the marking and levelling out of the boundaries of gender identity. Melnikova’s paintings attract viewers with visually fascinating and aesthetic colours and surfaces. Although here we have to remember that the pleasure of smearing, drawing with a paintbrush across a canvas etc. has always been an integral part of the painting process. Melnikova smears the paint onto canvas or illuminated photo paper and then immediately removes it, thus discarding the thick layer of paint which has become a standardised technique for men in Lithuanian painting. She was able to overturn the canon because of her experience gained from creating performances. In one such performance (Recognition. Don’t kiss me, I can do it myself, 2007) the naked artist kissed a mirror, leaving traces of lipstick on it. In painting Melnikova has deliberately chosen a colour which brings with it a wide range of associations – from lipstick to blood – but during the painting process she imitates the movements of sexual intercourse: she kisses, smears and removes the paint, rubs, touches and presses against it. The artist does not play with painting surfaces as a value in itself. Moreover, the visual pleasure from her paintings is not always positive. On the contrary, it takes on the character of a threat (to the viewer) or aggression. The artist uses this, exhibiting paintings in such a way that the viewer does not have any chance to step back, they have to look or choose some other way out i.e. to leave or to escape. The Austrian artist Elke Krystufek seeks to achieve a similar impact in her works. Melnikova’s manner of painting is close to the creative work of this artist also as regards actionist painting. Last year Eglė Karpavičiūtė wrote a theoretical paper on the continuing death of painting, however in her own works, on the contrary, she is no longer looking for the end of painting or its boundaries. At present she is repainting exhibits from exhibitions by those Western artists who analyzed these problems. The artist interprets painting as a certain form of inspiration and obsession, as an unusual and constantly tormenting disease. It is as if the artist had no choice but to paint – it is impossible not to paint. Thus Karpavičiūtė offers another category which views painting as a form of thinking. Modern painters in Lithuania interpret the scene they are painting as a construct, where the emphasis in the painting process is not on emotional or sensory input, but on the intellect. Firstly, the painter comes up with an idea of the image to be painted, then the secondary source of origin gets dismantled and afterwards an image is constructed on the basis of structures characteristic to other media (photography, cinematography). Everything is based on the analysis of images and their development during the process of creation. The analysis-based painting process used by modern Lithuanian painters has allowed them to assert that painting is a way of thinking and seeing. /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis/ | |
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