Šarūnas Leonavičius. The Multilayered World of Being
13 June – 28 September 2025
Šarūnas Leonavičius (born in 1960) is one of the most outstanding and unique Lithuanian graphic artists. His oeuvre is distinguished by meticulous drawing, refined technique, and intellectual content imbued with symbols and metaphors. The artist’s works are rich visual narratives, unfolding between history, mythology, religion, literature, and surrealist imagination.
The exhibition presents works from the series dedicated to Lithuanian ethnologist and writer Gintaras Beresnevičius’ book „Lietuvių religija ir mitologija“ (Lithuanian Religion and Mythology, 2008), Kristijonas Donelaitis’ long poem „Metai“ (The Seasons, 2014), as well as etchings and ink drawings of various periods, on religious, mythological, and poetic themes.
Leonavičius’ artworks often resemble architectural drawings: strictly structured, technically precise, but simultaneously full of metaphysical tension. They combine bodies and figures with elements of nature and ornaments, while the allusion to ancient scripts and the aesthetics of engravings manifest themselves as fragments of contemporary visual theology.
Leonavičius, like an alchemist, connects the eras, and in his etchings and drawings, one can see references to the works of Dürer, Piranesi, or Goya, however, these are not quotations of style, but visual dialogues with cultural history and memory. Although the artworks are full of allusions to the Bible, ancient iconography, Baltic mythology, or esoteric symbolism, Leonavičius is not didactic. On the contrary, his oeuvre invites reflection, insight, and contemplation. Here, the viewer becomes a slow reader, as if opening an old book, where each page, filled with subtle, interwoven drawings, ever tells a new story.
Leonavičius’ monochrome illustrations for Donelaitis’ „The Seasons“, executed on special paper by painting and drawing, intertwine images of the 18th-century Prussian countryside, the archaic relationship of human to the land, and the cyclical time of nature. Leonavičius avoids being illustrative in the strict sense: his oeuvre reveals a distinctive, multi-layered world in which even the smallest detail – a character, an object, a plant, an architectural element, or a fragment of nature – is not accidental. Each element of the image conveys a deeper meaning related to the nation’s culture, its values, its identity, and its struggle for survival, unfolding through its language, customs, beliefs, and connection to nature.
In his interpretation of Gintaras Beresnevičius’ oeuvre, Leonavičius takes another step – from historical reconstruction to cultural deconstructivism. In illustrating Beresnevičius’ texts, he depicts not specific plots, but the very way of thinking – mythological, ironic, and sometimes surreal. It is a world where ancient Baltic gods, celestial bodies, winged people, and other mythical entities fit in, constantly intertwining and changing. These works are distinguished not only by their narrative but also by their visual language, as if the artist were trying to embody the very pulsation of Beresnevičius’ texts, their wanderings between time, reality, and consciousness.
Šarūnas Leonavičius’ exhibition is not only an artistic experience, but also an encounter with text, culture, and memory. The viewer is invited here not only to look, but also to read the image – slowly and with an open heart.
Curator Algė Gudaitytė
3 L. Rėzos st, LT-93101, Juodkrantė, Neringa, Lithuania.
+370 469 53 323, +370 46 410 412
pamario.galerija@lndm.lt
