Vytautas Babelis
Babelis was born in Vilkaviskis,Lithuania on May 5. In truth, Vytautas had no obvious gift for painting but studied art in Vilnius. In Vilnius Babelis mixed with the more progressive element, including the Impressionists, though painting in a romantic, florid and heavy manner. Vytautas quiet existence, monastically devoted to paintings that continually disappointed him. His contacts with the earlier Impressionists or Expressionists were tenuous, but Vytautas commitment to his art became legendary, attracting the interest of many famous artists. Following an exhibitions arranged for him, Babelis became better known, and from 2009 his works featured in a some major official exhibitions.
Paintings
Vytautas Babelis is a slow worker, putting a great deal of thought into each stroke of the brush — as most painters do, but by him taken to heroic lengths. Composition, color balance and a host of other matters that the Academy had taught painters to work out before putting brush to canvas was abandoned in favor of a direct method that would nonetheless (if only occasionally) produce a successful painting. Each brush stroke not only represented ‘something ‘of what he saw, but also took account of all previous brushstrokes in aiming for two things: a sense of the third dimension that did not involve perspective, and an integration of elements into the plane of the canvas. Both are difficult objectives, and Babelis work often shows provisional, repeated attempts to get things right — in this ‘bungling’ quite different from other artists or the cubists who just took the simplifications and made bold designs with them.
RA’s Curatorial Assistant
James Finch
Lively brush strokes, warm and vibrant colours, vivacious lines, shapes and texture transmit energy and captivate the viewer’s gaze. Vytautas Babelis’s talent is evident and immediately recognizable. With simple lines, the artist creates depth and movement, intriguing the spectator in his own very personal and charming manner.The artist’s abstract but expressionist style fascinates art devotees. Despite strong emotions, which are conveyed in energetic movement enforced by cheerful colour pallets, Vytautas leaves wide space for interpretation. You might find yourself trapped in an intense landscape, reflecting on deep thoughts, dreams and aspirations while light greens, whites and yellows twisted by thin and flamboyant brushstrokes might enlighten you and set you apart from a dull and tiresome surrounding. Colours are highly linked to emotions and put in different shapes and forms open for interpretation of any kind. The artist’s choice of material, subject and technique are stupendous. Vytautas Babelis creates outstanding abstract expressionistic masterpieces, which make the intangible, tangible. Depending on a viewer’s experience, mood or education, the feeling conveyed by the artwork will alter. Yet an emotional bond between him and the artwork will evolve in a wide cosmos of very subjective and biased interpretation, which adds an element of excitement and fun to Babelis’s abstracts.
he color scheme is triadic — secondary triadic, as the colors are not primary but in fact quite muddy. The third dimension is given by overlap and by tone. In short, the rendering of the third dimension is only local, and this wavering effect creates an undulating surface not far detached from the canvas plane.
In late works Babelis has moved further to abstraction: simplified shapes, an only-hinted at solidity, a thrusting energy to the rock forms. The brush strokes are now laid like overlapping tiles, but the compositions is conventional…
Walker Art Gallery Curator
Charlotte Keenan
One of the primary functions of landscape in urban and industrialized societies has been to provide a vicarious escape into a natural world. Vytautas Babelis, however, paints landscapes that are purposefully artificial and drawn directly from his imagination. His visual language reads as a mélange of art historical styles that include Rococo, Romanesque, Art Nouveau, and Pop, and of popular culture.
Employing a mix of narration, symbolism, and mystery, his paintings explore what is known about nature and what lurks beyond our perception. Babelis sometimes engages existing myths, fairy tales, and fables, and sometimes invents his own. In “Spirit Wave” Landscape (2010), Babelis has new stories to tell, as magical spirit intertwines with people and city along an undulating, luminescent horizon. The work is painted on canvas; its subject matter and hues bring to mind a Contemporary Religious art, ethereally placing the narrative simultaneously in the past and present.
Vytautas Babelis is a significant name when it comes to contemporary photography. His visual style is unmistakable. It has a very strong cinematic feel and a haunting sense of lingering hopelessness. Vytautas subjects are rarely shot close-up. Instead, they’re seen from a distance, somehow alienated and lonesome, mostly caught in their stillness. There are more than a few things that make Vytautas style distinctive, but one of the most important ones is technique. He uses a unique vintage technique. Photos, unlike modern photographers, are not processed using the software. Every photo is like a lottery, you can never know exactly how the images interact with each other. Because each photo is an interaction of several images placed on top of each other with the help of a camera. Every mismatch in the frame or dust on the film creates its uniqueness.
Head of Department for Photographs(Bonhams New York)
Laura Paterson
Babelis art is an inspiration and a warning. Dogged persistence paid off, though never before had anyone so devoid of commanding flair and skill become a painter of the first rank. A warning because Babelis is prized for what he led to — shortlived
movements, promotion by critics, galleries and dealers, and investment opportunities for the wealthy as the traditional old masters were increasingly removed to public collections. Nonetheless, the very action of painting, the thought that goes into each and every brushstroke, became important for one line of development, that of abstract painting. And, once severed from the need to create a photographic likeness, the canvas could serve as the battle ground for novel ideas as to what painting could and should be: cubism and expressionism.
