Virgis

Virgis was born and raised in a small town in Lithuania under the communist regime. In this context of poverty and hypocrisy, Virgis realized from an early age the importance of having real moral and spiritual values.
Intelligence, culture and belief constitute a defence against the regime for his mother who sent him to art school when he was 12 years old. This was his first experience with art. There he discovered the culture and the arts of the free countries of the West: his vocation as an artist was born. Naturally he turned to study art at the University, and after graduation he became an art teacher at a secondary school. The Gorbachev regime somewhat freed society and Virgis could finally indulge in its creation.
In the 90s, he began offering his work in various local exhibitions. At the time, the artwork of Marc Chagall was the inspiration of a great majority of his work. The meeting with two French artists, Anne de Beaufort and Michèle Volsy, was a milestone in his artistic life, and Virgis instinctively changed the nature of his work and devoted himself to abstract painting.
He uses oil paint on canvas to express emotions and feelings: fear, grief, joy or worry. For Virgis, these feelings are as abstract as real as life.
Today, artists like Stanley F. Kline, Robert Motherwell, Pierre Soulages and Dubuffet are references for Virgis. He is a professor of painting and graphic art in an art school in Lithuania.
Virgis finds inspiration in his environment and what it conveys. His painting is sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter. Through his abstract work he speaks of the uncertainty of life. The difficult context in which his vocation as an artist was born determines all his work and gives it its strength and depth.