On March 30, at 6 pm, the exhibition Recycled Colours by Jurgis Tarabilda, one of the most successful Lithuanian artists of the younger generation, will open at the Riga contemporary art gallery Look. The artist is exhibiting in Riga’s Look gallery for the second time, thus extending the cooperation with Vilnius city gallery Meno niša, which represents J. Tarabilda.
Recycled Colours is J. Tarabilda’s seventh solo exhibition, and the works are made using paint leftovers accumulated in the artist’s studio over the last few years, painting on canvas. However, the artist proposes not to call them paintings, adding that the only visible evidence of the artist’s presence is the application of paint with a brush.
J. Tarabilda is a graduate of the sculpture department of the Vilnius Academy of Arts, presenting his work both in Lithuania and abroad. The artist focuses not only on painting but also on photography, video works, and objects, creating a complex and intense field of work.
In 2017, J. Tarabilda’s work was awarded the Audience Prize at the Young Painter Prize competition, and in 2020, he was voted the best artist at the ArtVilnius’20 art fair. J. Tarabilda’s works have been acquired by MO Museum and private collectors from Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, Israel, the USA, Estonia, and the UK. The gallery representing the artist, Meno niša, has successfully presented his work at contemporary art fairs such as viennacontemporary in Austria, Positions Berlin in Germany, and ArtVilnius in Lithuania.
J. Tarabilda’s exhibition Recycled Colours will be on view at Riga’s Look gallery (Ģertrūdes iela 62A) from March 30 to April 22. The opening of the exhibition will take place on March 30, at 6 pm, during the traditional gallery evening Riga Last Thursdays in the Latvian capital.
Vilnius city gallery Meno niša is supported by Vilnius City Municipality.
Art critic Rosana Lukauskaitė about the exhibition:
Jurgis Tarabilda’s Recycled Colours
The kaleidoscope of imagery in Jurgis Tarabilda’s latest work Recycled Colours seems to have gone through the nine circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno – having renounced himself, experienced enlightenment, and taken a vow of silence. The true purification of painting is a return to the paint scale, to the acrylic tube, untainted by the aim of depicting something concrete, while betraying both reality and the imaginary. J. Tarabilda’s works reveal the decentralized diffusion of painting and invite us to engage in this dialogue of modern art discourse, where new questions are constantly being raised about the role of the artist, the nature of painting, its influence on culture, and what we, as an audience, expect from the domain of canvas.
Although the works were made using the last bits of paint accumulated in the artist’s studio over the past few years and using the means of expression typical of painting, i.e., painting on canvas, the artist proposes that they should not be referred to as paintings, adding that the only visible evidence of the artist’s own presence is the application of paint with a brush. This creative strategy should make followers of the French philosopher Roland Barthes, who will remember the thinker’s essay The Death of the Author well, wonder if the artist’s distance from the work is no longer just a historical fact, but also a creative strategy that transforms the understanding of the creative process. The text argues that the author is born together with the work and has no being that precedes or transcends his work. The work becomes multidimensional and made up of quotations coming from a thousand cultural sources. J. Tarabilda’s latest project invites us to consider the work as a constantly renewable source of energy and explores how recycling can have both an ecological and aesthetic meaning.
Jurgis’ Recycled Colours series can be seen as a rejection of the artist’s usual aesthetic ideals and hierarchies, where he is more willing to explore art as an open and continuous process, where color, form, and material become components, not just one of the characteristics of the final result. The artist’s efforts to rethink his position in the history of painting, while analyzing how artistic concepts evolve over time, reveal the paradoxes of painting as a discipline and practice. The works reveal the idea that art is not only a form but also a context that determines trajectories of appreciation.
If we surrendered to the claim to “decipher” the work, we would impose on ourselves a symbolic missing object, an incompleteness, a desire for meaning that is constantly sought but never achieved, called “objet petit a” in Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory. In J. Tarabilda’s work, we can see this lack through the random choice of colors and the effort not to consciously create a composition. This reveals the artist’s desire to show that imperfection can become an artistic value in itself. The refusal to call his works paintings shows that Tarabilda’s works explore other communicative possibilities, moving away from the traditional language of painting. This process forces the viewer to confront his or her own gaze and reflect on how the identity of the observed object is constructed through a relationship with the perceiver. The artist’s choice to use leftover paints from previous projects symbolizes his relationship with himself and his own creative history, while the randomness and use of rectangular shapes indicate a desire to open up a space for the Other – the viewer – to interpret the works independently.
Tarabilda’s older exhibitions, such as The Reality Show, Into the Non-Being, and The Sun Entering the Room, perfectly illustrate his ability to combine explorations of spatiality with intuitive forms. Different models and techniques of artistic expression, as well as constant creative change, allow him to remain a relevant and interesting artist of the younger generation, constantly expanding the field of his artistic experience. Although Tarabilda’s work is characterized by a distinctive style and themes that have reflected the artist’s creative development over the last few exhibitions, his work can be linked to the work of some of the most famous artists in art history, such as Jackson Pollock, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, the Fluxus movement, James Turrell, Yves Klein, and Robert Rauschenberg. This shows that Tarabilda’s work reflects trends in both art history and contemporary art. The artist focuses not only on painting, but also on photography, video, and objects, creating a complex and intense field of work. In this way, he creates a dialogue between different forms of artistic expression.
J. Tarabilda’s work demonstrates the artist’s unique and provocative position in the context of contemporary art. The artist constantly questions what reality is and whether we can really reach an understanding of it through art. His work opens up a wide world of simulacra, encouraging us to think about the autonomy of art and its interaction with the viewer. The artist’s works act as intellectual challenges, questioning the usual angles of approaching art, suggesting that art is dynamic and that its perception changes depending on the process. The artist shows that the creative process is infinite and limitless, empowering the viewer to engage in active interpretation and a personal search for meaning.
The question arises whether works similar to color palettes are just superficial reflections of the artwork, or whether they can also become art objects in their own right, with their own meaning and value. This notion of ambiguity creates an interaction between the artwork and the viewer, emphasizing the subjectivity and diversity of art. These colorful visions subtly deconstruct our perception of reality in front of our eyes, forcing us to reflect on art as an alternative or opposite to everyday life. The boundaries between object and image, fact and fiction, and past and present become blurred. The artist who chooses to question our own fantasy and treatment of the supremacy of art gives new meaning to the leftovers of paint, and what at first appeared to be a simple experiment in color becomes a philosophical metaphor for the limits and possibilities of art, allowing us to explore the essence of art, the process of art-making, and the value of artistic experience.