Aušra Čapskytė. Picture like a short story
Her creative sphere encompasses a wide range of works: from miniatures to impressive paintings and graphics, or classic literature illustrations. In her works, the worlds of reality and fantasy merge to produce a homogeneous fabric. The resulting combination promotes a new kind of life – mobile, amusing, playful, sometimes nostalgic but always friendly. It invites the viewer to take a personal trip to the virtual spaces filled with unexpected discoveries, or to enjoy a jigsaw puzzle offering the fun of recognizing details – once seen or experienced.
Each picture, like a definite span of human life or a short story, has its own action, intrigue, and the original structure of rhythmic composition. Aušra’s artistic nature is rich in the freedom of fantasy and the resourcefulness of visual arrangement. However, her creative individuality has been, and still is, formed by an invariable spiritual attitude or plane of living – to be a princess. This means a PARTICULAR way of regarding the world, and a PARTICULAR way of selecting its values. This implies speaking about big things easily and playfully, and completing details meticulously; as well as not showing a grimace of pain in a setback, and, when it is over, not to turn back in dismay but enjoy the moment of beauty instead, being well aware that everything is transitory. And to share willingly all this wealth with those who can appreciate it.
The values of Aušra’s world come from a particular source providing her with motifs, signs, colour combinations, and a range of rhythmic tones. They originate primarily from the global and local culture with a multitude of its forms; they emerge from stage scenery, folk arts, ethnic culture, literature, music, mythology, travels, etc. But most of all, they derive their origins from Vilnius, the native town, namely, from its architecture and legends, the sounds of its bells and rushing rivers, the rhythm of its undulating hills, the maze of its streets, and secret lives of its backyards.
The complex dynamism of Aušra’s rhythmic structures, the free composition if her images, the syncretism of her artistic expression, the associative character of her images, the diverse harmonies of time belts and spaces, and the application of new techniques characterize her as a creator of modern art.
The special characteristics of her works include the introduction of linear ornamental textual structures into the visual ones; the importance of detail as a composition intrigue; and the jubilantly hilarious sound of the whole. However, the most important feature of her creative work is the experience of beauty of the time passing away, and the versatility and fragility of everyday life hidden under the external lightness, decoration, and playfulness of image.
Art critic Ona Danutė Jedzinskienė
February, 2011
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