Interior with a bird

At first sight, the pictures by Audronė Petrašiūnaitė (b. 1954) are mesmerising with their vibrating colours and the impression of light. After enjoying the subtleties of the colours, the eyes begin cautiously to look for and identify details of the interior, the shapes of the furniture, the potted plants, cats, birds and people, who play walk-on roles in the artist’s compositions. By painting the corners of rooms, and by turning painted images into ornate knots of colour, Petrašiūnaitė recalls the French Nabis group of Symbolists and its followers in 20th-century Lithuanian art, classics such as the Pole Tymon Niesiołowski (1882–1965) and the Lithuanian Algirdas Petrulis (1915–2010). However, Petrašiūnaitė’s aims are different. She aims not to immortalise a moment of tranquillity, but to show her relationship with reality, in which the longing for an unrealised dream, sometimes pierced by a note of sadness, obscures the Nabis group’s assertion of beauty and harmony.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė   

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, OBJECTS ON SHOW (2017). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024

At first sight, the pictures by Audronė Petrašiūnaitė (b. 1954) are mesmerising with their vibrating colours and the impression of light. After enjoying the subtleties of the colours, the eyes begin cautiously to look for and identify details of the interior, the shapes of the furniture, the potted plants, cats, birds and people, who play walk-on roles in the artist’s compositions. By painting the corners of rooms, and by turning painted images into ornate knots of colour, Petrašiūnaitė recalls the French Nabis group of Symbolists and its followers in 20th-century Lithuanian art, classics such as the Pole Tymon Niesiołowski (1882–1965) and the Lithuanian Algirdas Petrulis (1915–2010). However, Petrašiūnaitė’s aims are different. She aims not to immortalise a moment of tranquillity, but to show her relationship with reality, in which the longing for an unrealised dream, sometimes pierced by a note of sadness, obscures the Nabis group’s assertion of beauty and harmony.

Text author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė   

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album MORE THAN JUST BEAUTY (2012). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, OBJECTS ON SHOW (2017). Compiler and author Giedrė Jankevičiūtė
Expositions: “More Than Just Beauty: The Image of Woman in the LAWIN collection”, 12 October – 11 November 2012, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius
© LATGA, Vilnius 2024