Kęstutis Grigaliūnas was born in Kaunas in 1957. Between 1976 and 1982, he studied graphic design and production at the State Art Institute of Lithuania, soaking up numerous inspirations and influences he would invoke in constantly shifting and ironic ways down the line.
Whether in painting or sculpture, Grigaliūnas’ curiosity and capacity to reference and to borrow led him to embrace a very personal interpretation of the artistic fragment. Indeed, since the beginning of the 20th century, modernity has explored the fragment as part of the whole, a synecdoche that either stands in for or calls to the ensemble. But for Grigaliūnas, the fragment, as an independently detached entity, is entirely self-sufficient, to the point where it can supersede the whole it broke off from. Through the detail, the part, the piece, the artist reflects the greater image to comment it, and not the contrary.
Although his art is figurative, it is never anthropomorphic. Once again, humankind’s objects and tools are sufficient to depict those who manipulate them. These subjects offer a three-layered reading. The first layer is what is immediately visible. The second, the interwoven intellectual and cultural references that function as a metanarrative. The third, the material ‘battle’ visible both in his painting and in his sculpture. This celebration of the fragment is echoed throughout his career, with Grigaliūnas expositing very regularly – therefore showing of segments of his corpus – and taking part, even as an established name, in collective shows, where he functions as the part of a wider ensemble.
Chronologically, his earlier works are more ironically jovial. The bold colours and confident forms of comics or children’s books are borrowed – often through the technique of stencilling – to cover up a latent anxiety. Looking to Pop Art, Fluxus, and also cinema (Eyes Wide Open for example), the artist cultivates his own language, his personal network of useful and meaningful references. In the mid-2000s, the optimistic illusion is slowly torn down, and visual pollution reveals what was always present: uncertainty. Around 2007, death, as a subject and motif, becomes an accepted creative element, as it is perceived to imbue sense where none can be surmised.
