X YPP Book

Interview 120
• Why painting? (How did you discover this medium and why have you chosen it?)
I always loved drawing and painting. I went to several art schools, which I really
enjoyed. I was also interested in theatre, scenography, and fashion design.
People kept saying that it was very difficult to get into Vilnius Academy of Arts,
but I braved myself and got in. It was a rather spontaneous decision. I now feel
that I am in the right place. Painting has always been giving me a chance to
understand and realise myself better, and to observe and analyse the world
more deeply.
• What inspires you? (Individuals, contexts, etc.)
I use tracks, scores, and rows to signify alienation, normativity, and loneliness.
Finding interesting sports-related stencils or numbers always inspires me to
think of the new motifs and and ideas. I also find the soviet legacy to be
important for my art. The sight of certain walls, wallpapers and sports inventory
can bring back memories and evoke a strange nostalgia. I am emotionally
attached to all these steamy sports halls with their green walls and brown
benches, with those weird yellows and mouldered blues — all those colours and
their combinations bring back repressed memories and feelings that serve as an
inspiration.
• Creative motifs. (What drives your creative practice? What are the topics you are
working on?)
In my works I am touching upon the topics of the disappearance of authenticity
and personality, and the complexity of seeing oneself as an individual. My
painting is about the freedom of being different. Many of my motifs are based on
the imagery of the sports lessons because of my personal experiences and the
desire to liberate myself from them. All these creative ideas are somehow
related to the memories of me jumping over the trestle, making rollovers, or
hanging on a crossbar. A sports hall full of all kinds of children — tall, short,
stocky, spectacled, weak and energetic — and everyone has been attempting at
doing the same tasks. Hanging, climbing, falling down, hanging again, and
jumping up. These distant spaces and exercises are still vivid in my memory. I
feel haunted by them. And my yet unrealised creative tasks are a reminder that
life itself need me to perform and comply with norms.
• What can you tell us about your creative process? Where does your artwork start
and where does it end?
As I look back at these dirty and wind-swept stadiums, I find myself revisiting the
situations when both possibilities and individual choices were still far from my
aspirations. I revitalise those scenes through painting. I thus travel back to those
halls lit by the fluorescent lamps. I am trying to find a relation to the past and the
social environment in which every deviation from the norm resulted in of social
ostracism of one kind or another.
I find the landscape structure that dominates in my pantings important to me:
I regard my past as a series of well trodden and ever-changing landscapes that
sometimes can be completely fictional. The sketchiness in my works refers to
a fleeting nature of a memory. I approach painting differently each time I am
in front of the canvas. The paintings can never be completely finished, and the
empty spaces in them are the clues to the aesthetic continuity between them.
• Have you ever seriously doubted your choice to become an artist? (If so, what
stopped/reassured you?)
I don’t think I have. I like the path I have chosen.
• Do you find the Baltic art scene interesting? (What is your opinion about
Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian art? How would you describe their differences?)
The art of the Baltic region always interested me with its variety of different
stories and motifs, which is always evident in various collaborative projects and
group exhibitions. I find a lot of sensitivity and depth in the works by the Baltic
region artists. I always enjoy visiting the shows, art fairs and performances where
I can encounter their explorations of narrativity, time, memory, everyday truths
and paradoxes of life.
• How did the Young Painter Award influence your artist’s career?
Actually, this Award was really unexpected for me. Being recognised was very
pleasing, I became more confident. These things are important for young artists.
The Award did in fact open the doors to new exhibitions and helped with my
visibility, not to mention the memorable residence in Norwegian mountains
where I had a chance to develop many creative ideas.