Mindaugas Lukošaitis. Imagination. Composition. Dream

The artist’s drawing sensibility was shaped and clearly influenced by the ink wash painting tradition, which was strong and distinctive in the East. That is why his larger-format free line drawings are as if an homage to this tradition; there one can find darkness and line, chance, and visual uncertainty. In the “I Dreamt of Japan” series of drawings, Lukošaitis gives free reign to the free movement of the hand in a format untypical of his work, out of which appear images of a dreamstate Japan. Despite their intensity, like the other drawings in the exhibition, they articulate not a noise rising up but, on the contrary, – a deafening silence.

The “Compositions” series comprises 20 ink works which portray endless architectonic arabesques of disappearance and with his pencil the artist explores the holes, gaps, cavities and blacknesses of every ruined house, dug-up street, and dead city. The artist employs graphite to sharpen the edges of the debris and measure its size. Drawing becomes for him a constant state of wakefulness, a testimony to loss of humanity, and an indictment. Furthermore, a form of dissociation, observation, and a meditation on evil. It is a look from the beyond, from a future already itself in ruins.

These are universal metaphors of ruins. The series surprises one by its silence, the numbness of freezing bones, and muteness of form. Ruins are an aesthetic category of modernity. They are a token of our losses, buried hopes, and incurable melancholy. The contemplation of ruins becomes a kind of paralysis, a psychodrama of prolonged mourning.

Mindaugas Lukošaitis (b. 1980 m.) graduated from the Sculpture Department at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. The artist regularly takes part in international group shows and holds solo exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad. He represented Lithuania at the 26th São Paulo Biennial and participated in the Populism exhibition curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen at the Frankfurter Kustverein. Lukošaitis’ works have been exhibited at institutions like VOLTA NY in New York, the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, and Galerie Fons Walters in Amsterdam. They have also been included in Phaidon’s encyclopedia “Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing”. Works by Lukošaitis are featured in the collections of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark), Lewben Art Foundation (Lithuania), MO Museum (Lithuania), as well as private collectors in Lithuania and abroad.

Exhibition architect Ieva Cicėnaitė

Maecenas Živilė and Jonas Garbaravičius

Patron Rolandas Valiūnas

Supporters of the exhibition Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania,
The Lithuanian Council for Culture

Supporters of the gallery Vilnius City Municipality, Vilma Dagilienė, Romas Kinka,
Ararat, Lietuvos Rytas, Ekskomisarų biuras, Namai ir objektai, Farrow and Ball, Libra Vitalis