14 Apr–23 May 2010, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius
Paintings and drawings by Povilas Ričardas Vaitiekūnas
The exhibition is a retrospective of work by Povilas Ričardas Vaitiekūnas, from his earliest to his most recent paintings and drawings.
Vaitiekūnas‘ paintings resemble documents recording the past, not only the landscapes, but also the light, the relationship between the colours of the sky and the earth, and tones in water. Looking at these works, we can see the light that surrounded him in his childhood; we can let our eyes rest on the shimmering surface of the Nemunas near Česukai as it looked in 1977; and we can feel what the summer of 1987 was like.
Although his work could be classed as Expressionist, he is, in fact, a Realist painter. Expressionism manifests itself in his work in the tense colour relationships and in the expressive strokes. But Vaitiekūnas himself has stated that the principal creative impulses, the infection, are reality and nature, and that using fantasy to construct fiction in art is essentially a lie.