UA. Mariupol Painting

CULTURE'S SIGNS IN SPACE The expression of Tadas Gutauskas's ( TaDas ) work is universal in various areas of art, showing him to be a 21-th century artist for whom 'matter in space' is boundless. His bronze figurines created during the past decade clearly reveal this concept - with their peculiar, cultural signs, their compact silhouettes, their sensitive plasticity, and with the tracks of their deliberately significant dynamic molding. Their content of signs is reminiscent of archaic African and Latin American totemic remains, of ancient European cultures, of a Baltic world view, and contemporary man's thought process. Meanwhile, his artistic characteristics are expressive, stormy with personal impressions, and filled with sensitivity towards nature and man. Having adopted the statics of archaic, sacral sculpture, the artist renders the figures dynamic by molding their surface with the impressionistic style. ( Art Critic, doctor of art research Nijolė Tumėnienė ) INCANTORY PAINTING One could guess that Gutauskas's ( TaDas ) contemporary plasticity stimulates two circumstances - the aforementioned solidarity with the personal multitongued symbols and with the desire to break from traditional, canonized painting. Both moments stimulate a game without rules, paintings with no prognosis, difficult to motivate, submissive only to the logical development of plasticity. So shining bodies can be compared with matte, decorative scenes- with lethargic motions of a brush; next to spirals with an attitude lies a bramble -bush of unruly strokes; next to historical citations infantile drawings held captive by experience. The rebellious nature of the paintings is also revealed by an artist who while manipulating symbols rarely draws archetypal forms. The sacred colors are frequently exchanged with dominating synthetic colors. Maybe that's how it should be when desire is to cast a spell on the users of synthetic products... Gutauska's paintings, as should be in postmodern art- is chock-full of paradoxes. Let's not rush into becoming comfortable with them. This neosymbolist reveals himself unwilligly, thus gaging us with a long-term connection. ( Art critic Nijolė Adomonytė ) IMAGINATION RITUALS The first impression one gets when looking at the latest sculptures by Tadas Gutauskas (TaDas) is that you have involuntarily found yourself surrounded by some magical, perhaps even ritualistic figures.