Eglė Velaniškytė – one of the most outstanding representatives of figurative art and expressionism in Lithuania. She graduated the Vilnius Academy of Arts with a degree in painting in 1982. Her artworks can be attributed to the so-called “generation of the break” (she studied together with Šarūnas Sauka, Vygantas Paukštė, Audronė Petrašiūnaitė, Ramūnas Čeponis). She was one of the brightest young painters in Kaunas in the nineties, who later exchanged urban life to country life. Quiet time spent in Sabalunkai farmstead in fact was beneficial for her in creative terms: the artist painted a number of valuable rich-colour artworks portraying unrefined characters and breathing unadorned lives. Expressive and realistic painting techniques are merged in her paintings. According to art critic Rasa Andriušytė, “the garners of Lithuanian expressive painting are not emptying. Velaniškytė’s works remind of paintings by Vincentas Gečas and Arvydas Šaltenis”. Same as her teachers, the artist is looking for realistic situations as a starting point and pivot enabling her descend boldly down into the depths of existence. On the other hand tragic elements have always been the cornerstone value of “the generation of the break”. Yet, when you are over fifty, belonging to your own generation and its values become quite relative…
This time the artist tells about the fortune of her life – painting. According to the painter, “there are no two lucks in one life, so one has to choose – to be a happy woman or a happy painter. I have made my choice and I stay with my paintbrushes”.
Eglė Velaniškytė’s exhibition shows artist’s works created over one summer. They are full of prevailing light shades – greyish, yellowing, pinkish. The paintings are not racked by efforts. Rather, they are made in a burst of one inspiration, consciously trying not to come back to the same painting but, at the same time, they are finished from the beginning to the end, without leaving any emotional or technical gaps. The exhibition displays a variety of painful and open feelings of an unhappy woman presented in canvases of a happy painter.