“From ones Soul’s Desert I”, 2018. Oil on canvas. 140 x 110 cm. Photography by Virgis Usinavičius.
Ramūnas Čeponis. “From one’s Soul’s Desert”, at gallery “Meno parkas”, Kaunas
2018 07 04 – 2018 08 04
On 4th of July (Wednesday) at 6 PM at 1st and 2nd floors of the gallery “Meno parkas” (Rotušės a. 27, Kaunas) will be held the opening of Ramūnas Čeponis’ exhibition “From one’s Soul’s Desert”. INVITING!
The painter and graphic designer Ramūnas Čeponis, one of the most prominent representatives of Lithuania’s middle-generation abstract painters, is celebrating his 60th birthday this year. For the occasion, the artist is staging several exhibitions. On July 4, his exhibition From the Emptiness will open at the Meno Parkas gallery in Kaunas.
The pieces of art presented at the exhibition show that the artist remains true to meditative painting – he calls on visitors to focus on the spiritual depths hidden within Man, to dare to travel to the limits that unveil the purity, emptiness and silence of the soul, to find oneself in the middle of the emptiness and approach the essence lying behind it. The artist raises fundamental existential questions, and his paintings open up the contours of the self and blur the boundaries between light and darkness. For the artist it is vital to be able to recognise love and hatred, to come into contact with eternal truths and to take a look at one’s own and the world’s grandeur and hollowness. The silence speaks words of cognition, serenity and joy, at the same time the fear and suffering of the dazzling darkness.
“Far more important than the formal components in each individual case is the internal content inspired by spiritual reality. It is this reality that matters the most to Čeponis, something he declares with each piece of creation he produces. Not by replicating the image but rather by working with specific selections of colours, textures and paints, the artist paints with a rather generalised and hardly verbalisable internal movement. This is something that is happening when painting, then looking at the outcome, initially the artist’s, and then into our own souls. This is something happening in spiritual reality.” (Art critic assoc. prof., Dr. Jurgita Liudavičienė about the paintings of Ramūnas Čeponis)
“Sometimes his work seems to be akin to abstract expressionism; however, there are no traces of superficial expression in Čeponis’s painting. The artist creates meditative abstractions consistently, persistently and, somehow … intelligently (I understand that the word sounds old fashioned, and possibly not entirely correct, but that is the word that I specifically want to use in this situation). His work is not at all painting of gesture, there are no broad strokes or a spree of brush on canvas. Nevertheless, traces of broad strokes of a spatula can be seen on most of his works. However, those hand movements shaping the planes or textures are tamed and muted, because it is not the surface expression that is most important for Čeponis. And actually, not expression at all. The surface is relevant only as much as it helps to perceive the content. Because it is painting of content.” (A cultural researcher on the works of Ramūnas Čeponis)
Ramūnas Čeponis was born in 1958 in Vilnius. In 1982, he graduated from the State Institute of Art and since 1983 has been actively working in painting, graphics and book design.
A member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association since 1989, Ramūnas Čeponis has arranged more than 30 personal exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad and participated in numerous group exhibitions in different countries. He is the winner of various graphics and book art exhibitions, participated at ArtVilnius 11, 16, 17, and 18, the International Vilnius Painting Triennial (2016), was part of a group of Lithuanian artists at the Venice Biennial (2016) and the international painting symposium Mark ROTHO 2017.
Works by Ramūnas Čeponis are displayed at the Lithuanian Art Museum, the M K Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, the MO museum and the Division of Graphic Art at Vilnius University, and have been acquired by private art collectors in Lithuania and abroad.
Curator – Jurate Mork
Exhibition at gallery “Meno parkas” (Kaunas) will be held till August 4th.