Barbara Painting

I started my journey to the art world in 1986. Or maybe even earlier. Nobody can tell now, because when I was a small curious girl, fragile, fine, and very sensitive, nobody really cared about that. Back then I lived in Lithuania, which was occupied by the Soviet Union. I grew up in a small town with a red, amazingly beautiful and grand but abandoned church. In that area there was nothing special or interesting, except that the nature in the area was breathtaking. All the settlements were destroyed by soviets. There were two story functionalist blocks scattered all over. The church seemed to stand out as a foreign element in that typical setting, just like I was a foreign element in the typical community. Broken church windows, like sad eyes, kept watching me, as I closed mine and dreamed about being a magician, the church suddenly turning into a castle, where beautiful soulful music flows, events, cultural gatherings, and exhibitions take place. But when I opened my eyes, I saw same weeds, same doves coming in big flocks, then landing on the empty windowsills of the church. And I still believed in my dream, because strange and unknown things inspired me, all my life was surrounded by magic, signs from the above and dreams, which other people often had difficulties understanding. With time I became more reserved, created my own world, which had no household chores, upset people, or bad weather. On each brochure, which I could put my hands on in those hard and scarce times, appeared my drawings of gardens full of mystical plants and birds, vases with unseen fruit, angels with animal faces. This is my special world, which reflects in my art also today. In that place, inhabited by normal and mediocre people, with mediocre stories and soviet way of thinking typical for that era, I looked like a dinosaur. But I kept saying: One day this church will become a castle. And the miracle happened! One morning next to the churchyard I saw a few trucks full of building materials and a man that looked like a wizard – with a long beard and a beret. In his look I found so much of what I had missed in the mediocre soviet looks of mediocre soviet people. That was him – my most wonderful teacher Bronius Grušas, who later renovated the church, opened an art school there and became the main person, who gave me advice and guidance choosing my art majors. However, the gallery did not survive for a long time.