In August 2024, Eimutis Markūnas’s exhibition “TRANSFUZIJOS” was showcased at Vilnius Town Hall.
Eimutis Markūnas (b. 1959) is a versatile and multifaceted artist, creating works in stained glass, painting, graphic art, video, drawing, photography, installations, objects, and performances. His vitality and unstoppable creative flow are reflected in over a hundred stained glass works and artistic glass objects, installations, and performances in public and private spaces, as well as in more than fifty solo exhibitions and active participation in various exhibitions both in Lithuania and abroad.
His works are held in the collections of the National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas, the Vilnius Academy of Arts Museum, the Finnish Glass Museum in Riihimäki, the Emschertal Museum in Germany, the State City Museum in Berlin (Scharf–Gerstenberg Collection), the Mark Rothko Art Center in Daugavpils (Latvia), the “Imago Mundi” Foundation in Italy (Luciano Benetton Collection), and private collectors in Lithuania, Czech Republic, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, USA, France, Estonia, Belgium, Australia, Latvia, Spain, India, and Nepal.
However, the value of the artist’s work is defined not by its diversity or quantity but by original thinking and a unique expressive style. On one hand, this is inseparable from the context of the surrounding environment—E. Markūnas belongs to the so-called “Breakthrough Generation” of artists associated with the art field processes in Lithuania during the 1980s and 1990s, and the movement of the group “Angis,” founded in 1990. On the other hand, it reflects the artist’s individual relationship with understanding and valuing the world and the consciously set goals. For E. Markūnas, art is an inner necessity and an endless process, where emotion and thought interact. These two elements continuously acquire new multifaceted narratives.
In the exhibition, the artist displayed only a small part of his work—painting and drawings. It is in painting that E. Markūnas’s emotional character is most vividly expressed. He uses color, light, and gesture as primary means of expression. The dynamic brushstroke on large-format canvases, paper, wood, or embossed metal plates, and the perception of color in E. Markūnas’s work have varied from active color to monochrome imagery created using graphite techniques (graphite painting). The energetic impact of light and limitless imagination are powerfully revealed in drawings created using the artist’s masterful technique.
According to poet Julius Keleris, in these works, human nature seems to be born from the primordial cosmic force. Terrifying yet hypnotizing images emerge from the void or the depths of the subconscious. From chaos, a new world is born. Eimutis Markūnas’s world.
Dr. Danutė Zovienė
The exhibition partner and publisher of the monograph “Eimutis Markūnas. KALBĖJIMAS VĖJAMS” is the MENO PARKAS gallery.
