A look at Algis Skačkauskas drawings 0
In brief: Visual stories of Algis Skačkauskas have outlived the artist himself. His expressive characters unconfined by strict lines can easily move in the viewer's consciousness and independently extend the story, which was started by the painter.
On the 17th of September painter and poet Algis Skačkauskas would have turned 60. To celebrate this Vilnius Children and Youth Art School teacher's anniversary, exhibition "White. Red" featuring artist's drawings and paintings on paper was held at the school's gallery Vėjas (curator Jūratė Stauskaitė).
Many art critics who have analyzed the works of A. Skačkauskas agree that all the artist's paintings are literary and his poems - painterly. As Raminta Jurėnaitė emphasizes, painter can be characterized by a neo expressionist color palette, with which artist creates everyday scenes and interprets classical subjects.
In many exhibited drawings (not so much in the paintings) a pronounced following in Marc Chagall's footsteps can be felt. According to A. Skačkauskas schoolmate Vygantas Paukštė, Algis admired M. Chagall since his early studies. Creative affinity can be felt, firstly, in his treatment of color. Black contour line is complemented with color spots, although it is rarely done very carefully - often quite symbolically, as if allowing the viewer to color the empty space in his mind, like in a children's coloring book.
Bird motif repeats in several drawings. Sometimes they look like swans, seized by their long necks and walked on the ground. Looking at them you can just physically feel what it means to lose freedom, independence and everything that is dear to you, it seems, that you cannot even breathe freely.
The curator of the exhibition, head of Vilnius Children and Youth Art School, graphic artist Jūratė Stauskaitė was joking during the opening that she would have liked to see the author's Eros theme more but she could not allow that in the Children and Youth Art gallery... However, she was unable to completely avoid mild eroticism - especially in the red room, where the Skačkauskas stylized female nudes were displayed.
