gyvenimo vaisiai
an early piece that had me exploring the abstract while still dipping a toe into realism. i wanted both.
realism was what proved i am a ‘good artist’. something that gained approval from others and left no space for questions like ‘so what’s that supposed to be?’. i love dabbling with realism, but only as much as i do in life. it’s beautiful, it’s delicate, but there’s so much space to fill with my imagination and inner worlds. too much dwells in my mind that comes from dimensions too far removed from the realistic.
i started looking into art that came from civilizations before our own. i began exploring the ancient, the archaic, and started conversing with the characters in my own inner landscape. this is a figure of speech, of course. i’m not crazy. i think.
this artwork is a play between what art i was expected to make and what art was truly enticing to me. it’s also a cocky expression of, ‘look, i can be both’. it was exhilarating how well two fragments of different worlds complemented each other.
maybe that’s where the meaning lies, too. how every fragment of our being has to be brought together to form the whole. i’ve spent years trying to be one type of person or another, but in the end, existence only makes sense if i am all parts of myself simultaneously.
at the time of painting this, i really did feel fragmented. conflicted between different nodes that pulled my in opposite directions. what do i choose? well, the meaning changed to me over the years. i understood that the choice is not between opposing forces when i chose the center which encompassed all versions of me. the sacrifice there was that i no longer fit into certain communities and environments, but the prize was being myself.