Linas Jusionis: Resort

We are pleased to present Resort, the seventh solo exhibition by Linas Jusionis at Vartai Gallery. In this new series, the artist invites viewers on a creative journey filled with nostalgia, melancholy, and a rethinking of everyday objects and spaces in novel contexts.

Ski jump towers, rising like minimalist sculptures within the landscape, evoke a nostalgic belief in rational order and progress. At the same time, they succumb to entropy, pulsing with bittersweet fatalism. This mood echoes in other elements of the exhibition: a solitary telephone booth set against neon letters, decaying ancient sculptures dissolving into a bright blue space, and an elusive detective-like figure – perhaps just an ordinary tourist –only implied through the abstract ends of skis. As we navigate these everyday spaces, seemingly random objects catch our gaze. Their images intertwine multiple contexts, prompting us to question why these things hold our attention and what meanings they construct. At the same time, there is a desire to move away from this excess of meanings, focusing instead on the image itself, the pure form, and compositional structure, surrendering to surface and experience.

By calling the exhibition Resort, Jusionis not only reflects the locations of the landscapes in the paintings or their decadent mood. The title also resonates as a verb, referring to retreat or a final option, encouraging the artist to consider the connotations of disappointment or defeat. Looking at the Alpine landscape favored by existentialists and romantics, one is reminded of the twilight of La Belle Époque and the atmosphere of Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, which draws parallels between that era and the conflict-ridden world of the present day. These reflections also stir uncertainty about the sustainability of the existing order. Here, pleasure, fatigue, and anxiety intertwine, mirroring the ambiguity of artistic experience typical of Jusionis’s work. In this context, a subtle humour and a sense of admiration for an observed or constructed situation also emerge.

Linas Jusionis (b. 1986) studied philosophy at Vilnius University from 2005 to 2007 before completing a BA degree at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and gaining a MA degree in fresco and mosaic in 2011. That same year, he won second place in the International Young Painter Prize competition. Since 2009, he has actively participated in group exhibitions and held solo shows. Since his debut at Vartai Gallery in 2011, Jusionis’s paintings have attracted many admirers in Lithuania and abroad. His works are included in collections such as the MO Museum, the Lewben Art Foundation, BTA Art, and numerous private collections both in Lithuania and abroad.

Edited and translated from Lithuanian by Alexandra Bondarev