Own Land

Agnė Jonkutė and Milda Gailiūtė belong to the list of the most talented painters of the middle generation of Lithuania. Their creative work represents the landscape of the contemporary painting of Kaunas City. Both artists can be considered to be representatives of the school of abstracted painting based on individual associations which formed in the 1980s. If we look for common denominations in the work of the two painters, we should discuss the previously mentioned sensitive and purified relationship with color and the ability to render it to the spectator. In many cases, the selected motifs are heavily related with the emotions of the artists. In their work, some peculiar sacral spirit is born out of the color. This stream of color is unique for their works. It turns into some extraordinary self-identity along with the inborn sameness with one’s personality.

An overview of the recent works suggests that the attitude towards painting is a conceptually selected tool. The process of painting, despite being a separate process, turns into a meditation process which gives sense to the accrued views of the environment. In many cases, it seems as if the painters are talking to themselves and simultaneously they are taking the spectators along with themselves into their humane emotions.

The creative work of Agnė Jonkutė and Milda Gailiūtė focuses on registering their experiences and not on landscapes with perspectives. The two painters have been working for many years in the genre of post-landscape. It may seem that their works feature the views of specific places or their fragments, but it is still impossible to treat these views as only motifs of panoramic landscapes. Even such traditionally perceived entities as water, trees or shapes of houses are more likely the personified ways of rendering the spirit of a place. Thus, these are more than views… However, isn’t this the right way of depiction?

About the creative process

The world of Agnė Jonkutė is like a ritual. Her single color pictures originate from drawings, performances, installations and works of video art. The painter creates her own vision of the world. This is one of the myriad of potential visions. This vision comes from the nature of her personality, from her experiences, events, hustle and bustle of the everyday world, from static items. In her pictures, Agnė Jonkutė reveals the intimacy of the daily routine in a very subtle and infinitely silent way. She halts the flow of time and purifies the essential things. The minimalist views position the viewers in front of the depth of her thought and the firmness of her action. There is nothing unnecessary. Each stroke, each line and each color is denoted by purposeful intensity. There is no didactics, no narration of the plot. There is only calm breathing of painting which cannot be understood in the rational world. In this particular case, the comprehension is even not required.

A window, a table, a bed, a sheet, a building, a tree, bentgrass… these objects can be seen in her pictures as if fragments which become peculiar symbols on the plane of painting. Her works are denoted by some bizarre visual catchment. It seems that this is more than physical existence. You can feel a kind of pulsating energy which is spreading. This energy is pacified and even densified. The silence of a color is woven into unity. Agnė Jonkutė projects the visible objects onto her own universe and onto herself. In other words, she lives in her own universe and casts the shadow of her soul onto these objects. Her creative activity is denoted by cinematography, but definitely not by sentimentality. To the contrary, she is firm in her behavior and in the depth of her thoughts. She can walk on the narrow edge while using only one or two colors.

Observation of her works brings the state of profound calmness. There are no superimposed roles here. The understanding comes that reality can be perceived in a subjective way. This may be the real strength and value of her creative effort. 

Agnė Jonkutė (born in 1974) is living and creating in Kaunas. In 2003, she graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts Kaunas Art Institute. In 2005, she was improving her skills in Paris. Since 1999, she has been taking part in exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad. She has been involved in interdisciplinary projects. She has been the curator of numerous exhibitions. In 2005, she won the gold medal in the 5^th Francophonie Games. Her works are exhibited in independent Lithuanian and foreign galleries.

The world of Milda Gailiūtė is as if an instance of being. Her paintings are frequently related with graphic and drawing. The painter has discovered a conceptual and peculiar interpretation of the landscape genre. When creating, Milda Gailiūtė is processing the material of visual reality, sometimes even drawing this material towards the frontier of abstraction. She manages to blur the frontier and purify abstraction. The painter looks for the balance with the values and concepts of classical painting. Then, she transforms the values and concepts into the structure of contemporary artistic reasoning. She focuses on the subordination of the motif within a single-color achromatic space. The dimness of her works is cozy and somewhat mysterious. Milda Gailiūtė is a researcher. She carefully observes the environments in which she lives and which are dear to her. The heroes of her pictures are cityscapes, and she gets these cityscapes to talk easily. The light in her pictures is full of subtle hues. This light is neither completely artificial nor purely natural.

An impression is created that the author really cares about the very process of painting. She carefully selects the motifs, sifts them through her mind and transfers them onto the canvas. In this process, she rejects any unnecessary details or colorfulness. Thus, she is approaching abstraction, which is essentially sheer clarity and pure transparency. The artist remains with only the pure motif and a single color. This process is diligent creation of associations which awakens the emotions and memories of the spectators. Colorless visions not only reconstruct a view with its perspective. Actually, the artist is creating a spiritual message which touches everyone, and no one remains indifferent. 

Milda Gailiūtė (born in 1984) is living and creating in Kaunas City. In 2007, while she was still studying at Vilnius Academy of Arts Kaunas Art Institute, she started taking part in exhibitions. She has held 13 personal exhibitions. Independent art collectors from Germany, Austria and Lithuania have acquired her works. One of her works belongs to the Imago Mundi Foundation (Italy). In 2020, her work Beautiful Landscape beside Steinhof Hospital No. 2 (painted in 2014) became part of the collections of M.K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art.

M. Gailiūtė is an active participant of group and international exhibitions, and she has won a number of awards for her works. 

- Art critic Jurgita Vainiuvienė

The Exhibition Organizer: Meno Parkas Gallery
The Exhibition Co-organizer: TPK Art I Pensament Contemporary