Paddington station

Off to Windsor, where we had a long lunch on the bank of a river.

Freedom

Just some funky 6th century BC ceramics at the British Museum.

It's been two weeks since my last high school exam and its consequential delicious freedom. I'd like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the four institutions that have shaped me during the past twelve years:

1. I have the fondest memories of the four years in my primary school, Senamiesčio pradinė mokykla. There I felt so safe, made my first friends and got married.

2. Even more dear were the three years at Kaunas Jesuit Gymnasium. I was part of easily the best class in the year - amazing people I came the closest to 'rebelling' with, and still see every time I go back home.

3. Having finished Year 7, at the age of thirteen I moved in 2005 with my family to London. The first nearly-eight months were spent - painfully! - school-free, as it took us a while to find a permanent home (this is when I started drawing).

Within the first few weeks of living in Neasden, my brother and I were put by the Brent council into Claremont High School. Things changed. On the first terrifying day I had to write with the class a physics test to determine the science set I'd be put in. I also spent an hour in the set 1 German class, knowing not one word in the language. And while they soon appropriately put me in set 3, for some bizarre reason I stayed in set 1 English! I no longer felt safe. For the next two and a half years I felt I was the black sheep in the herd that was the school, or - like Lithuanians say - the white crow.

I'm the one with the leg in the air.
Don't ask.

4. Getting into North London Collegiate School, where I recently took that symbolic last exam (Higher Level German!) I didn't really plan for. But it happened, and there I spent my latest two years. Completely shook my academic confidence, but socially I now feel much more able. Sometimes I still wonder - did I really study here?


What a LIFE it's been, so far. The years haven't at all passed that very quickly, for I feel like I've lived for decades. And to think that in just a few months I would be writing about my first impressions of university life... Someone please wake me up!

What a relief!

Despite the initial distressing reports of a violent and disturbed scene, it appears that the Baltic Pride was a success after all! Yes, there were attempts by radicals and even MPs to disrupt the march; the police in places used tear gas and arrested some 19 persons; but I do not for a moment doubt the long-term positive effect this historic event will have on Lithuanian (in)tolerance.

The first step has been taken, discussion begun; but most significantly, it has been proven to many there that gay people are in fact more normal than their aggressive haters, who supposedly represent family values. Lithuanians have for months been questioning and protesting against the need for such a pride, and I hope that the eyes of at least some have been opened!

Erica Jennings, Irish-born vocalist of Skamp

BBC News article

Baltic Reports article

Baltic Pride

With the UK election fuss of the past hours (go Caroline Lucas, first green MP in history!) international affairs must not be forgotten.

For several months now I have been following the restless build up to the Baltic Pride, scheduled to take place tomorrow, 8 May, in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. A few days ago Lithuanian courts suspended the permission to hold the demonstration for LGBT rights.

Sorry, what?

edit: Back on, it seems!

Study leave

I was recently looking through job ads and applied to two gallery shops, both of which have yet to respond.. BUT I did also come across photographer Dominic Harris recruiting people for his project, Standing Very Still. So I enrolled! and spent one Sunday afternoon running back and forth the Oxford Circus crossing with a group of very random individuals. Here's two of my favourite shots out of about ten attempts from the day:


Trust me, I am in there somewhere. There's also a video showing us frantically run into position each time the tiny traffic light man turned green. So there.

This was naturally not enough to satisfy my art hunger (eh?) since finishing my course early, so last Friday evening, 23 April, I spent in the company of some thirty Lithuanian artists at our Baker Street-based embassy. Most of the content of the meeting is top secret of course, but I can say that I was most ecstatic to be there and more importantly - there's an exhibition coming up on 11-23 May at St Martin-in-the-Fields! More information here, scroll down to "Urban Clones". Unfortunately more detailed texts are all in Lithuanian, but the essential idea is to find emotional links between the cities of London and Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, through the means of photography. The curator of the exhibition is a third-year Lithuanian student at the Courtauld! So if you're in the area during the two weeks of its showing, do have a look.

Victoria & Albert

Some fascinating exhibits I came across when rediscovering the V&A: the Japanese armour below, a gigantic plastic cast of the 33m Trajan's Column in Rome (photography doesn't do it justice) and Alexander McQueen's dress that Salma Hayek wore to the Vanity Fair Oscar after-party! I highly recommend visiting the gem that is this museum.

House-sitting in Notting Hill on the Easter weekend. *Bliss*

Binoculars

Tried to spot some life on Mars today and all I got was a scarcely larger orange dot.

In other news, Nick Gentry is bringing life back into floppy discs.


I'd have it on my wall.

It's been two weeks

I didn't notice how I've become fond of ceramic art. I tended to underestimate its possibilities, but by now at least two of my recent posts include clay or porcelain pieces. And here I go again - plastic surgery on dishes by Beccy Ridsdel. What a concept!




I'm happy to be back for a while after busy exam times and presentation writing, which took up my entire weekend. Although there's tonnes still to be done, I thought I'd earned a blog post or two.

I'm starting to put together one of my last final pieces for the IB course that finishes in mid-March. The base will be a large silk cloth with three heads batiked - a young face, an old one and a skull - on which will go a printed collage of.. what, I don't exactly know yet. The main theme is Shakespeare and I'm personally illustrating death and passage of time (blahh). If it turns out to be any good, I'll upload a photo. Otherwise my next project in pending is collage on pottery (inspired by Grayson Perry, of course). Now only to get this all done and, I almost forgot, visit Florence in February half term! Life is becoming good again.

I rewatched Perfume: the Story of a Murderer last night. As disturbing as it may be, it's one of the most artistic films I've ever seen. Couldn't say anything about the book, but I'm intrigued - is it as visual? The director (also of Run, Lola, Run!) did an incredible job at illustrating Grenouille's extraordinary sense of smell.

It's the light

No time to write. Exams.

Recently on TV

There has lately been so much on for the sake of art that I couldn't resist noting ideas down. Below are some discoveries I've made as a result.

During Where is Modern Art Now?, Dr Gus Casely-Hayford introduced the artist Grayson Perry as "everyone's favourite transvestite potter". After such a comment I surely had to had to check his work out, and I must say, I'm now quite a fan. He uses more than one technique to transfer the often brutal imagery onto surfaces, immitating collage. On clay!

so far my favourite, Hot Afternoon in 75, 1999

In Ugly Beauty, Waldemar Januszczak mentioned the British sculptor Rachel Whiteread, who apparently is the first woman to have won the Turner Prize back in 1993.

I've long considered the idea of negative space intriguing. For instance, imagine that it's never you moving, but the space around you moving you.. Well, most of Rachel's work focuses on exploring negative space. Take Untitled (One Hundred Spaces), 1997, below, which is a collection of resin casts of the empty space underneath one hundred chairs!


In a more recent project she made casts of packaging objects. In his review (worth reading for more about Rachel), David Row recalls:

"When I saw Whiteread's exhibit, it was still being unpacked, so there were actual packing materials beside Whiteread's sculptures of packing materials. Talk about life imitating art."

So let the Stuckists stick to their figures, but I think this is all brilliant. Towards the end of Ugly Beauty, Waldemar Januszczak concluded with the following idea about conceptual art:

"In an over-explained world, what could be more precious than the inexplicable?"

Conceptual Art

I discovered today the existence of the Stuckist movement, which, as amusing as the name may sound, has been producing figurative work in opposition to the currently dominating conceptual art. I myself have finally come to appreciate the latter, as long as the idea conveyed in the work manages to captivate me.

You have to admit that the art of today is less and less about the skill of the work and predominantly about the idea behind it - illustrating a different attitude towards an object; experimenting with an environment; shocking the public (although the last is probably no more, since we're becoming immune to provocative and daring works).
Contemporary exhibitions are dominated by installations and performance art that will illustrate our society to future generations just as, well, Baroque art illustrates 17th century society to us.

Below are a few of my favourite pieces that the Stuckists would probably disaprove of:

Curtain by Daniel Arsham

Tee trinken by Lei Xue

Believe it or not, I find these to be just as deserving of the label 'art' as a painting by Rembrandt.

Artists by Artists

I've thought of putting together a collection of portraits of artists depicted by other artists. Works like that have always interested me particularly, for they illustrate connections and relationships you never thought existed between individual names.

Did you know for instance that there was a close group of Impressionists living and working side by side in Paris, but that Edgar Degas was never a part of them due to quarrels? I find such trivia fascinating and it's time I started recording it.

First is old friend Van Gogh drawn by my beloved Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1887:

Observing a work like this I begin imagining how the sitting for the portrait may have taken place. The idea alone that two such talents were in the same room together excites me. There is surely a story behind it. Oh how I'd like to know every such story.