In January 2024, Vilnius Town Hall will host the Lithuanian artist Paulius Šliaupa’s exhibition “Like Night Dreaming of Day” and the Belgian artist Manu Engelen’s exhibition “Agency of Matter,” marking the first time Engelen’s work is presented in Lithuania.
Paulius Šliaupa’s collaboration with Belgian artist Manu Engelen began during their residency in Ghent, Belgium. Working together at the HISK residency and traveling, the artists became more acquainted and started a dialogue between their different artistic practices. “Together, we want to reveal attention to visual structures, observation models, poetic energy, and the human relationship with technology,” said the artist living and working in Belgium about the idea behind the joint exhibitions.
“This is not the first collaboration of Paulius with international artists. In 2022, the gallery ‘Meno niša’ presented P. Šliaupa’s exhibition ‘Earth Drama’ with Swedish artist Finn Anton Örstrand, inspired by nature, where the artists embarked on an exploration of the modern human’s relationship with the landscape. We highly encourage such creative international collaborations of our represented artists,” said Diana Stomienė, director of the Vilnius City Gallery ‘Meno niša,’ emphasizing that the gallery has been collaborating with the Vilnius Town Hall and organizing exhibitions for its artists for several years.
Through two spaces, Vilnius Town Hall and the gallery ‘Meno niša,’ Paulius Šliaupa’s exhibition “Like Night Dreaming of Day” will explore the changing human relationship with nature: video works and paintings created during his studies and residencies in Belgium will be shown at Vilnius Town Hall. At the gallery ‘Meno niša,’ “paintings,” laser engravings of landscape models, and objects based on natural structures will be exhibited. 3D-printed insects, glowing at night, settle among the works and bring another interpretation of the modern relationship with nature.
“I come from a family of geologists, so I feel a strong connection to the earth. I spend part of the year in Barteliai village, which becomes a refuge, a small world with six inhabitants, where I can hide by the Merkys River, observe the light, feel and connect all the motifs before returning to the wider world. Motifs from various countries blend with the Barteliai fields and grow on canvases painted in the village,” says P. Šliaupa.
Belgian artist Manu Engelen’s exhibition “Agency of Matter” at the Town Hall depicts energy—from mechanical to nuclear. His work incorporates scientific and geometric motifs and concepts. Manu’s fascination with technological artifacts and their fragments inspires him to merge sensory and poetic realms. Industrial motifs turn into allegorical expressions, turbines into abstract wall paintings, and aircraft silhouettes transform into laconic forms.
Since childhood, Manu has been surrounded by models and various vehicles, as his father was a pilot, and they would go to watch aircraft displays, which formed a unique sense combining the poetry of everyday life with mechanical patterns. Later, while studying at the Hasselt PXL MAD School of Arts, he cut an F84 jet fuselage into five uneven parts and exhibited them in a gallery space as his final project.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Paulius Šliaupa (b. 1990) is a young Lithuanian artist currently living and working in Belgium. Starting with painting, he also creates video works, photography, and writes art texts. Paulius completed his bachelor’s degree in painting and a master’s degree in contemporary sculpture at Vilnius Academy of Arts and media art master’s studies at KASK and HISK post-academic residency program in Ghent, Belgium. Last year he won the main prize at the “ArtContest22” (Brussels) for young Belgian artists, and this year the main prize at the “INPUT / OUTPUT 2023” competition (Bruges). Over the past years, Paulius has participated in art residencies in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Iceland. His works have been acquired by private collectors in Lithuania, Berlin, Ghent, Rome, Brussels, Rotterdam, Paris, and Istanbul. Paulius’s works are in the collections of the M HKA Antwerp; “Mu.ZEE” Ostend; IKOB, Eupen; SMAK, Ghent museums.
Manu Engelen (b. 1984) lives and works in Levene, Belgium. In 2017, he earned a master’s degree in arts from Kunstacademie Münster, in 2010, a master’s degree in arts, and in 2009, a bachelor’s degree from Provinciale Hogeschool Limburg, Hasselt. In 2021, he participated in the HISK residency in Ghent. In 2020, the Flemish community acquired his works, which are now held by the Ghent SMAK. Manu’s second solo exhibition took place in 2020 at the “Callewaert & Vanlangendonck” gallery, and since 2022 he has been collaborating with the Antwerp gallery “Ponti.”
