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Jonas Butkevicius

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Biography

Philosopher, professor, doctor of technical sciences, traveller, honorary citizen of the Swiss Settlement community. Born on 27 November 1948. Born on 27.27.27. in Kaunas, Lithuania. In 1971 he graduated from the Vilnius Engineering Construction Institute with a degree in urban planning. 1973-2011 - lecturer at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. For many years he was active in sports - played football, table tennis. Interested in world civilizations, their art and history. Active traveller - has travelled to more than 70 countries on 5 continents, climbed Kilimanjaro, Mondlana and many other peaks. He has amassed a considerable art collection and a large library of art publications.
Butkevičius has painted in many of the world's leading art museums and galleries. He learnt painting from his father, the painter Pranas Butkevičius, and his uncle, one of the most famous Lithuanian painters, Professor Vladas Karatajaus. He also studied the paintings of the most famous Lithuanian and international modernists. Gediminas Pranckūnas, Ilona Žvinakienė, Rimas Zigmas Bičiūnas, Valerijus Zubriakovas and others. In his paintings, the artist draws on the traditions of the Arsists, Expressionists and Abstractionists. Butkevičius also designed and erected 5 chapels and a cross in various places in Lithuania. He designed the coat of arms of the Swiss settlement community. According to his designs, a chapel pillar was built and a stone park was created in the Swiss settlement.
Butkevičius says of his work: "Painting, like all art, is first of all a challenge to oneself - whether you will overcome the blank white canvas and leave a trace of your thought on it or whether you will give up. It's like climbing a mountain - you have to overcome all the difficulties in order to climb it. So it requires a lot of stubbornness and patience. But you don't create anything by force, so you have to be passionate, but at the same time you have to be unstressed, disconnected from all the other things you have to do and all the other worries."
"It's always the beginning that's the hardest, until you think of the motif, the concept of a painting. To express the chosen image, I first pass it through the prism of my own thinking, abstract it, envisage a colour solution, and then I let my feeling and intuition guide you and improvise, trying to give the painting a sound. For me, a painting has to sound!"
"The painter Prof. R. P. Vaitiekūnas said, "Colour is a refreshment for the eyes!". And for me, the most important thing in painting is colours, their contrasts and consonances. I paint with open colours, using a wide palette of colours, using relief strokes. I set the colour combinations against the routine of everyday life, the prevailing tensions in the world. After all, colours have a magical power. Colours are also human emotions, thoughts, even works. It is not for nothing that they say: "Man lives a colourful life". In my paintings, I look for harmony between man and nature, because that is where I feel best. I do not shy away from the grotesque. The themes of my paintings come from travel experiences, cultural backgrounds and nature. The abstract way of painting allows me to express a process, a state, a phenomenon, while the expressive way allows me to express nature."
My motto is "Life is a wonderful journey of discovering the world! So may this journey be colourful for all of us!"

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