Under the November Sun
2019 01 22 – 2019 02 28
“It is January, and the sun, if we get some sunshine by sheer miracle, now is different. The title carried by Martinas Jankus’ exhibition Under the November Sun also has to do with similar differences. To be precise, it is not a title, but rather a dedication to the short prose writer Antanas Ramonas (1947–1993) who died quite a while ago. November Sun is the title of a collection of his short prose (published in 1989 by Vaga), homonymous also with one of his short stories.
Why would Martinas Jankus dedicate this exhibition to Antanas Ramonas? There is no single answer, but we can try several accounts or interpretations. In his daily routine, Martinas’ major focus is on painting, but literature and reading, every day, is no second to art. (…)
It must be due to the writer’s contemplative way of seeing his immediate environment, the outskirts and the old town of Vilnius and the views of the “deep” Lithuania, that Martinas Jankus found the literary world by Ramonas akin to his own. (…)
What is this November sun like? It is probably meager and thrifty, its unexpected rays comb the last colourful leaves in the thickets of trees, cast strange reflections and create multitudes of incredible painterly shadows and colour matches in the shade. The sun, as it changes from its rather warm state into a colder one, transforms the view into a sombre, unusual, yet vibrant landscape. (…)
Martinas Jankus is a landscape painter (…). Yet they feel more like abstracted vistas of inner states recording not topographic features but unique colour schemes, the beauty of chromatic nuances and the fleeting irrevocability of the moment.”
Art critic Vaidilutė Brazauskaitė-L.
Martinas Jankus is a painter. He was born in Kaunas in 1970. In 1988, he graduated from the National M.K. Čiurlionis School of Art. In 1992, he completed his studies of painting at Vilnius Academy of Arts. He started exhibiting in 1991, and has since given 16 solo shows and took part in over 50 group events in Lithuania and abroad. He is a member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association (LAA). In 1997, he won the prize from the LAA ‘For Creative Fostering of the Lithuanian Painting Tradition’, in 1998, he was awarded the Neringa City Prize. His works are held by the MO Museum in Vilnius, the Loviisa Contemporary Art Museum in Finland, Kaliningrad History and Art Museum, as well as in private collections in Lithuania and abroad.
Publications about the exhibition on press:
“Tapyba tarp geografinių ir dvasinių peizažų” Gabrielė Žaidytė, Literatūra ir menas
“Tapytojo Martino Jankaus dedikacija rašytojui” Evelina Joteikaitė, Lietuvos Žinios