Culture

Summary

The Ontology of Painting in the Work of Arūnas Vaitkūnas

The article examines the works of Arūnas Vaitkūnas, in which the contours of the ontology of painting emerge. In Vaitkūnas' art works, two ines are interconnected - being in painting and being of painting. Deepening the tradition of expressionism, the painter delves into the reflection of human existence and the reality proper to paintings. The sense of being and the awareness of its disappearance, a direct experience of specific place and time have become the main subjects of his paintings. He considers the ontological characteristics of painting and reflects on how painting opens being in the surface of the canvas, in the structure itself of the picture through the means of pictorial expression. Besides in his paintings, found objects and installations he questions of the identity of painting to gain a deeper understanding of the peculiarity of the media, the relationship with reality, as well as the limits, liminality and the possibilities of its expansion. The article hermeneutically interprets Vaitkūnas' works, which connect with philosophical insights of Jacques Derrida, Arvydas Šliogeris, Justinas Mikutis, and the paintings of Francis Bacon and Gerhard Richter, revealing attempts to ontologize painting and the searches for its extensiveness, leading to the primeval geoglyphs.

Key Words: A. Vaitkūnas, painting, ontology of painting, being, reality, place, procesuality

https://doi.org/10.24101/logos.2022.57