Painting Near and Far by Virgis | Painting Figurative Oil

Virgis was born and raised in a small town in Lithuania under the communist regime. Intelligence, culture and belief constitute a defence against the regime for his mother who sent him to art school when he was 12 years old. This was his first experience with art. There he discovered the culture and the arts of the free countries of the West: his vocation as an artist was born. Naturally he turned to study art at the University, and after graduation he became an art teacher at a secondary school. The Gorbachev regime somewhat freed society and Virgis could finally indulge in its creation.

In the 90s, he began offering his work in various local exhibitions. At the time, the artwork of Marc Chagall was the inspiration of a great majority of his work. The meeting with two French artists, Anne de Beaufort and Michèle Volsy, was a milestone in his artistic life, and Virgis instinctively changed the nature of his work and devoted himself to abstract painting.