Jonas Gasiūnas was born in Tyumen, Russia in 1954. As a student, he frequented the Art Faculty of Šiauliai Pedagogical Institute (1972-1973), the Kaunas Stepas Žukas Applied Art Technical School (1975-1978) and the Department of Painting of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic Institute of Art (1978-1984). He later became a teacher. In 1992, he became Lecturer at the State Art Institute of Lithuania (now called Vilnius Academy of Arts). An Associate Professor since 2009, he acted as Head of the Department of Painting between 2010 and 2018.
A figure of Lithuania’s middle generation of painters, he marked his era by founding the ‘Angis’ group, which counted Eimutis Markūnas among its members. Like other collectives of the period, the group functioned somewhat like a union of artists, offering new avenues to artists and protecting their control over production.
In Gasiūnas’ own work, memory is envisaged in all its forms: pseudo-patriotic historical symbolism, popular religious iconography – grotesquely and ironically depicted – social and political issues, representations of youth (and the dynamism of the memoryless). Between the widely known and intimate, the artist explores the tension that separates the remembered from the forgotten. Even his technical approach embodies this doubled temporality. Indeed, in many artworks, the artist uses candle smoke to mark the surface. A fleeting source of light that will inevitably dissipate into darkness (forgetfulness’ oblivion), its burnt trace leaves a lasting mark on the artwork, counteracting the very nature of the flames. Said smoke participates in many paintings’ cinematographic compositions, the superimposed layers of pigments finished off by this intangible veil of lost light, symbolic of the illusory quality of remembrance. Memory is challenged, retained, recalled, altered, reclaimed, always celebrated.
In 2009, Gasiūnas won the Swedbank Art Award given to contemporary Baltic artists, and in 2010 he was awarded the Lithuanian National Arts and Culture Prize.
21st century solo exhibitions include: ‘Little Retrospective of Obsession’, Māksla XO gallery, Riga, Latvia (2017); Solo presentation at the contemporary art fair ‘VOLTA New York’, New York, USA (2017); ‘This Have Been Once Before. Obsessions retrospective’, Torun Contemporary Art Centre, Poland (2015); ‘Tapyba’, Wilno w Gdansku festival, Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Arts, Gdansk, Poland (2012); ‘Northwesterly wind’, Cēsis Art Festival, Latvia (2011); ‘Edward’s trajectory’, Lithuanian Theater, Music and Cinema Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania (2007); Vartai Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania (2005); ‘Drawing with Smoke’, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania (2004); ‘Pipe’, CAC, Vilnius, Lithuania (2000); Frederiksbastion, Copenhagen, Denmark (2000).
