Paulius Šliaupa (b. 1990, Vilnius, Lithuania) holds a BA in painting and an MFA in contemporary sculpture from Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius, Lithuania, an MFA in media arts from KASK, and the HISK postgraduate residency program in Ghent, Belgium. He was awarded the grand prize of ArtContest22, Brussels, Belgium, the main prize of INPUT/OUTPUT 2023, Brugge, Belgium, and the Simultan Festival prize, Timișoara, Romania, in 2024. Paulius was a resident artist at Foundation Fiminco 2024-2025, Paris, France.
Selected exhibitions would include personal exhibitions: Falling (2026), Kaunas picture gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania; Winterteller (2025), Bogardenkapel, Brugge, Belgium; A Snowfall of Salt (2024), Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle, France; After Nature (2024), Galerie Michèle Schoonjans, Brussels; Night Watch (2022), HuidenClub, Rotterdam; Neon Poems (2021), Casinot XXH, Malmö; and Dès Vu (2019), Meno Niša, Vilnius. His work has also been part of numerous group exhibitions, including Deep Fields (2026), CENTRE WALLONIE-BRUXELLES, Paris, France; Magical Realism: Imagining Natural Dis/order (2025), ARGOS, Brussels; Matrix-Ost (2025), Museum Kesselhaus Herzberge, Berlin; Habiter la faille (2025), Fondation Fiminco, Paris; And the Wind Will Take Us Away (2025), Stasys Museum, Panevėžys; as well as GOING PLACES, MOVING THINGS (2024), Mipec Longbien, Hanoi; KIN (2022), LT.art Vienna.
His works have been acquired by private collectors in Lithuania, Berlin, Ghent, Rome, Brussels, Rotterdam, Paris, and Istanbul. Paulius’ works are in the collections of museums M HKA, Antwerp, Mu.ZEE, Ostend, IKOB, Eupen, and SMAK, Ghent. Vilnius city gallery Meno Niša, which represents P. Šliaupa, has successfully exhibited his works at international art fairs in Antwerp, Paris, Budapest, Berlin, Cologne, and Copenhagen.
Text by Deima Žuklytė-Gasperaitienė
Although abstract, Paulius’ paintings come from natural phenomena. The artist observes natural fragments: water flow, reflections, shimmer, or snow shine. These images remain deeply branded in the painter’s mind and, gradually reducing the recognisable contours, he starts revelation of the sensations and colours on the canvas. The artist is particularly interested in light experiences which, according to him, “are the simplest thing to convey visually, whether in-plane or in space.” Therefore, he does not only paint them but also takes on the direct capturing of the light – photography.
Another striking feature of Paulius’ paintings is their multilayerness. According to the artist himself, his paintings are “wrapped in time”, day by day continuing with one layer after another. Like a magician, he chooses for this a special time of day when the light falls very smoothly – early morning hours and few hours before nightfall. The creation of a multi-layer painting during the particular hours of the day turns into a ritual, in which the view of the streaks of light is permanently captured on the canvas. In addition, the coatings of paint, when hardened, create relief paintings with a rich texture that casts shadows itself. This makes the paintings work not only on the representational level but on that of the real world as well.
The paintings created by the artist also look at the source of light. However, the technical qualities determine the subtlety of these works – the light is creeping as if through the mists where the pale contours of unknown objects can be seen. We know from occasional names given to the pastels that these are fragments of houses, kitchens or railways. Thus, the Šliaupa’s glance slides over the world of bluish northern light leaving his reflections on canvas or paper.
In his videos, Paulius Šliaupa is interested in various forms of water encountered by the characters of his works in one way or another. These may be children eating spring snowflakes, or a surfer girl paddling into waves. All their encounters with nature are like allegories depicted in classical paintings that do not refer to specific individuals. Paulius’ characters, too, embody different states: admiration, guilt, and buoyant surprise. The artist’s camera observing them from far is static, but the associative assembling of images creates a sense of a very personal story.
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Artist statement:
Our tools for understanding the world are often inadequate, rationalist and limited by our human perspective. The environment continues to change on scales beyond our comprehension, while scientific theories struggle to capture their full impact. As humanity grows more distant from nature, a yearning for deeper connection persists. Coming from a family of geologists, I am deeply interested in the friction between culture and nature, particularly the psychological effects of natural and artificial light.
I spent my childhood fishing by riverside and later immersed in screens—an interplay of analog and digital worlds that still defines my perspective. Today, I sense that direct wilderness experiences are fading, replaced by the immersive, expectant pull of digital media. My art practice seeks to bridge this divide, blending personal recollections, dreams, and technology to explore natural phenomena and modern life.
Fieldwork is integral to my projects. Using drones—tools originally designed for surveillance—I reveal perspectives that transcend human senses, imagining landscapes through the eyes of celestial beings. What visions emerge from these perspectives, and how might they reshape our imagination?
Ranging from video installations and experimental films to object-like paintings, my works weave painterly imagery, atmospheric sound, and poetic energy into sensual narratives inspired by poetic cinema, magical realism, and sci-fi. In an increasingly opaque digital age, I feel the need to affirm the tactile importance of matter and texture.