Artist Linas Leonas Katinas, winner of the Lithuanian National Art and Culture Prize, passes away

It didn’t fit in any frame

“We don’t have many personalities like Linas Katinas. The irony of fate is that as soon as its exhibition opened at the National Gallery of Art last year, Covid-19 caught on and went into universal quarantine. So it turned out that this exhibition became the last to be held in life. It was an honor for me to touch the depth of his work. The title of the last exhibition “Red turns white when it falls” also seems symbolic. That’s what happened, Linas came out, her color turned white.

The painter Linas Leonas Katinas was born in 1941. In Radviliskis. 1964 graduated from the LSSR State Art Institute with a degree in architecture. Since 1967 he participated in exhibitions since 1990. He was a member of the artist group “24”. He taught at the MK Čiurlionis School of Art, Vilnius Academy of Arts.

1999 awarded the Lithuanian National Art and Culture Prize. The works are in private Lithuanian and foreign museums and collections.

Linas Katinas (b.1941) stood out in the context of Lithuanian art both during the Soviet era and during the period of regaining independence. He entered the field of painting in the 20th century. In the late 1970s, he became one of the leading avant-garde artists of his generation, forming a concern for free and experimental creation in the stagnant culture of the Brezhnev period.

According to Eglė Ganda Bogdanienė, president of the Lithuanian Union of Artists, the work of Linas Leonas Katinas was completely phenomenal. “After graduating in architecture, he came to painting with a very clear expression of both modernist and postmodern thought. It seems to me that in his work he is way ahead of his time, and globally he can really be compared to the most prominent artists in the world. And not just as painters, because he used a wide variety of media in his work; for example, representations were one of his favorite forms of expression, “he said.

LL Katinas was an artist who did not fit any stereotype. “I remember he had his own house in Labanore, where he always worked: when he went there he painted, experimented and read a lot. He was one of those who read excellently in many languages: even in Soviet times he read English literature, he had a great knowledge of philosophy, cultural theory, history, he was very intellectual and very stubborn. On the one hand, very knowledgeable about his strange mission of the creator, on the other hand, each of his creations was an experiment, when you started, you did not know how it would end. He was one of the first to go to the studio at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in Paris, and he lived there for two months in very interesting surroundings. I will not forget his works, which he brought painted in various Lithuanian shrouds, with texts, with such symbolic quotes. For the first time, I was surprised that he, being such a global person, wanted to return to Lithuania in this way. I had something to discover here, ”EG Bogdanienė shared his memories.

He said LL Katin was one of those who shot well: “He used a wide variety of media that an artist can use as he grows up. He didn’t really create it with just a brush, although we may know him more from his paintings, but it was widespread in many places. “
However, EG Bogdaniene was very impressed by his wisdom: “You did not speak to him that often, but his comments were always very reasoned, very precise and at the same time vague, in the sense that there are philosophical criticisms where you can see every phenomenon from various angles. prospects. There is a great wisdom of man that comes so much from the natural intellect, because his family in itself is worthwhile, and it is acquired throughout life and through endless books ”.

“He read so much … I remember discussing his book” Π “- there the whole book is written about that number. Sometimes he immersed himself in the algorithms of higher mathematics, looking for systems and structures there: a truly extraordinary person. But he was very protective of his privacy. The cat is freedom – The cat is the life in which he could very much appreciate what he had: his family, whom he loved madly, his creation, whom he adored, and his creative suffering, in the one who lived, ”said EG Bogdanienė.

The LDS president says LL Katinas was like a Lithuanian Buddhist. “His conception of time and life, perhaps sometimes so different from ours, is the reason why his death, apparently, although it is necessary to survive in some way very personally, but at the same time somehow imagine that he has to show up somehow quickly, “he said.

Inspirations from various sources.

The art critic Raminta Jurėnaitė has written about the works of Linas Leonas Katinas for the MO Museum.

“In the 1980s, Leonas Linas Katinas, such as Eugenijus Antanas Cukerman, Dalia Kasčiūnaitė, Rūta Katiliūtė, Laima Drazdauskaitė and Alfonsas Žvilius, began to exhibit paintings in which abstractions, natural motifs and symbols alternate. For Katin, who left the architect profession due to Soviet-era bans and restrictions, painting is a field of freedom and experimentation. The artist broke the established norms in a funny and ironic way.

First, he reinterpreted the landscape genre, then he treated a wide variety of subjects in a no less traditional way, expanding the field of images in abstract painting and specific means of expression. Katinas maintained the restless spirit of her youth in later creative periods. According to Viktoras Liutkus, the artist “is an eternal restless, provocative, uncut hair grinder, interpreter of all cultural texts and earthly contexts, disseminator of ideas in Vilnius and the province. If we were to start looking for a creator among the representatives of contemporary Lithuanian art, whose works and activities would combine the spirit of the avant-garde, which had matured and preserved during the Soviet era, with the freedom of expression of contemporary art, we would return to L. Katina.

The artist draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources, from Tibetan Buddhist art to Lithuanian ethnographic heritage, from nature to everyday life. The cat paintings contain touches of landscapes, plants, flags, rugs, blankets, as well as archetypal signs, sacred objects or even works by other artists, but at the same time all the motifs are very abstract. Some canvases also have inscriptions or individual muscular elements.

In his early paintings, he summarized landscape and other motifs by reducing organic and geometric forms. In this way, the dune landscape is transformed into a laconic cartographic map in which irregular green and brown planes are contrasted. On other canvases, he composes horizontal stripes of two or more colors or is limited to monochrome on a white plane. The expressiveness of relief on many canvases and planes is important during this period.

In parallel, the artist develops geometric, gestural, emblematic paintings, which he complements with texts. In individual works or groups of works, this different artistic language is very intertwined. The artist attached great importance to the creative process in various periods. Especially in his late work, he leaves visible traces of spontaneous painting. The artist covers the painting in several layers, leaving an embossed texture or leaving fragments of the canvas surface unpainted. Apply the casting technique. Cut blueprints or use items close to the assembly and collage. The painter is interested in the harmony of the plane and the edge of the painting, the painting and the frame. Explore the image as an open field and as an object.

Sometimes, in her work, Katinas blurs the boundaries between painting and acting or action. After 1995, in addition to purely pictorial campaigns, he has also organized culturally and politically engaged shows. He also created a series of paintings on paper. They are much more chamber and lyrical. Household objects, archetypal signs, cosmological motifs are summarized here and composed in strict constructive compositions. A special tenuous tension emerges between the reduced compositions, the frugal graphic signs and the decorative sophistication of the brilliant transparent colors.

Katina develops her ideas of oil and watercolor painting in numerous groups of works that do not form a strict sequence of cycle or series. He often interprets the same motif many times, varying the rhythm and the linear and color combinations, ”wrote R. Jurėnaitė.

Here you can see their conversation.

J. Marcišauskyte-Jurašienė managed to speak with LL Katina for the last time during his visit to Labanor.