A young Lithuanian artist in Copenhagen remembers landscapes of home - Mykole Ganusauskaite

"When I'm creating the landscape on canvas, I feel all of these things - traditions and history - melting together into one image...It looks like a theatre set in which a scene from a nostalgic dream plays out."

A painting by Mykole, 130cm x 195cm, oil on canvass.

Mykole Ganusauskaite, born in 1987, studied at the Vilnius Academy of Art and the National School of Fine Arts in Paris (École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts), where she obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She has held several solo exhibitions in Lithuania and France, and participated in group exhibitions in Lithuania, France and Denmark. She is one of the winners (2013) of the competition “Young Painter’s Prize”.

Baltic Bridge: Having grown up in Lithuania and now living in Copenhagen, how does your homeland continue to influence your work?

Mykole: The dominant genre in my work is landscape. Landscapes of Lithuania emerged in my work while I was studying in Paris as an expression of memories of the time spent in Lithuania or longing for my homeland. I depict actual locations that I have visited and I hold important. My homeland is what I talk about in all my artworks: paintings, drawings, video and photography.

Baltic Bridge: How has Lithuania's history and traditional motifs inspired your work?

Mykole: From a young age I have been going to art lessons. We learned how to draw traditional motifs, learned about Lithuania's history, especially about Lithuania's ethnology and folk art. All of this inspires me indirectly, but it does influence my work a lot. When I'm looking at the landscape or I'm creating the landscape on the canvas, I feel all of these things - traditions and history - melting together in one image. Landscape for me is the background, reminiscent of a set design. It looks like a theatre set in which a scene from a nostalgic dream plays out.

Baltic Bridge: What do you think of the current art scene in Lithuania?  

Mykole: The current art scene in Lithuania is moving forward and advancing very fast. We have lots of good exhibitions, art fairs, good artist, and residence programs. We still need to put in a lot of work so that it will become better, but we are going in a good direction. What we need most perhaps to attract the attention of international galleries is to be more confident and to advance in our art educational programs. We could also focus more attention on educating the people who have not attended art schools or tend to frequent art galleries.

Below: Mykole captured in a landscape she painted.