On Tuesday, July 14, the traditional Vilnius Mayor's Award will be presented at the Vilnius City Hall. This year, the EUR 3000 award goes to the painter Vytautas Tomaševičius, who makes the Lithuanian capital famous on the international stage with his uniquely interpreted images of Vilnius.
"The received bonus is not an end in itself. I really hope that it will return to Vilnius next year as a new chamber space dedicated to contemporary art and music", hopes the artist, who is setting up a new creative studio in Naujosios Vilnias Dūmų st. quarter. Recently, the increasing concentration of creative industries here promises to turn the district into a unique corner of the city in the near future.
As it is written in the municipality's announcement, when awarding the prize, not only V. Tomaševičius' achievements and evaluations as a painter in Lithuania were taken into account, but also the well-deserved recognition at the ArtOlympia Biennale in Tokyo.
in 2019 In Japan, an international commission included the Vilnius artist's work "Still life with two objects", which depicts a fragment of Vilnius nature, in the TOP30 of the most masterfully executed works. The Lithuanian work competed for this title with more than 5000 works submitted to the Tokyo Biennale by almost 1800 authors from all over the world. V. Tomaševičius became the first artist in the history of Lithuania to successfully overcome this difficult stage of selection.
"Vilnius does not need to be "tightened" to the work of V. Tomaševičius, - observes art critic Austėja Mikuckytė-Mateikienė. - His paintings reveal a lively and quite diverse portrait of Vilnius. V. Tomaševičius not only participates in the life of Vilnius, but also analyzes it, captures it with non-standard views. In this way, the plots that came from reality acquire the spice of wonder, magical realism, and surreality."
At the same time, the author's work reflects the reality of a real Vilnius resident: what topics of conversation he likes, what he avoids, what he says during holidays and why he cares or does not care about certain issues. According to the art researcher, the work of V. Tomaševičius can even be called a certain psychographic-artistic study.
"V. Tomašević's paintings tell stories. They are not illustrative, so it would be more accurate to say that they draw the contours of stories: many current events in Vilnius, Lithuania, concrete apartment buildings speaks in a polyphonic narrative", says A. Mikuckytė-Mateikienė.
Vilnius mayor's prizes have been awarded since 2005. During the fifteen years of these awards, 25 creators have already received them, such as Eglė Ridikaitė, Algimantas Baltakis, Aidas Marčėnas, Justinas Marcinkevičius, Marius Burokas, Ona Narbutaitė and others.
