Andrius Zakarauskas. Exhibition “Stories from before”, The Rooster Gallery, 2020. Photo Vidmantas Ilčiukas.

Andrius Zakarauskas (born 1982), a conceptual painter, explores the medium of painting and the position of the painter in the context of contemporary art. Having graduated from the Department of Painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, the artist sourced the motifs for his early work largely from secondary realities – art history and film. In his later work, painting itself emerged as a central theme.  

Using essential elements such as brush strokes, colour, and composition, Zakarauskas creates a personal history of painting, actively engaging the viewer. In his paintings, anonymous figures appear in schematic interiors, oscillating between the abstract and figurative traditions of painting. In fact, these abstract figures are often Zakarauskas himself, embodying an army of faceless creators, or a thrusting hand armed with a brush, or the brush stroke itself. The artist complements his series of paintings with drawings, works in glass, and small canvases with his own system of symbols, by means of which he gives meaning to the process of creativity. In his latest works (2017-2019), besides the usual motifs, one can find religious themes and interpretations of the classic Christian narratives, uncharacteristic to contemporary art. This could be interpreted as yet another reflection on art history and the creative process: in these paintings, the painter broadcasts not his specific personal experience or stance but rather an encounter with it that happens during the act of painting itself. 

Zakarauskas’s work has been exhibited at the Vienna Fair in Vienna, Art Cologne in Cologne, and Cornice in Venice. The artist has had solo shows at the Rooster Gallery in Vilnius, the Michael-Schultz Gallery in Berlin, the Andreas Binder Gallery in Munich, Xin Dong Cheng Space for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Some of his most notable group shows are exhibitions at MO Museum in Vilnius, Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, M. K. Čiurlionis Museum in Kaunas, the Art Quarter Budapest, and elsewhere. In 2009, he was the first artist to win the Young Painter Prize. In 2018, he was awarded a Bavarian grant for his exhibition at the International Kuenstlerhaus Villa Concordia and Instant Intax Prize at the Vilnius Photo Circle Festival in 2019.  

The artist is represented by:  

The Rooster Gallery (Vilnius): www.roostergallery.eu 

Galerie Andreas Binder (Munich): www.galerieandreasbinder.de