The idea of SHAPESHIFTING possessed me when I first time came to Los Angeles, back in 2015. I found myself to the opposite side of the world, counting from the place where I was born. Travelling there was taking a leap of fate. When growing up and living in Lithuania, I felt that there must be more. I explored Europe and was still restless. Events synchronized themselves. I opened the gates to the Unknown. The night before the flight there was a storm. I sat in empty room, with the window wide open, with my suitcases packed, ready to meet my destiny. The journey was long. I landed in Hollywood. Elvis Presley was playing in old Mercedes. My first thought was - 'it's pretty shabby'. I lived close to Sunset Blv, next to Hollywood hills. The second day after landing I went to buy some canvas and locked myself at home. The outside world was so alien to me. I had no idea how to function in it. I felt that the answer is already inside of me and I will reveal it on canvas. This is how the journey of shapeshifter started.
Contemplation in the studio. Los Angeles. 2015
This sun and heat, the cars and helicopters, the stories of the past, actors, musicians, accents and slang, the nightlife which doesn't last till late, the different values and the sense of humour, politics. Everything was telling me, that I must change in order to adapt. I was an exotic foreign plant in this land. I was observing it, this animal, while living in it's belly. Silently. I was water in the land where is almost never rains. Primordial soup. A tabula rasa mind. My mind was expanding, the vastness and emptiness was expanding in it as I was letting go to all, that I knew, the past, all that I was holding to. I was a Marblehead.
SATANIC TRICKERY 2015. Acrylic paint and markers. 91,5 cm x 91,5 cm x 3,5 cm canvas on frame. From #SHAPESHIFTING series.
MARBLEHEAD. An ocean of primordial soup, I came from it as well. There was something that was calling me. Or I called upon myself to be summoned? It all must be divided in order to manifest. I divided self into the opposite currents, into male and female, into light and darkness and therefore I manifested. I gave birth to self, seduced my self to born, as I was craving to get attached to the opposite pole as the magnet does. I will call it SATANIC TRICKERY, and I will play this game of forgetting and then remembering, who I am.
There was the heavy presence hanging in the sky. Three glowing dark eyes, nothing like stars. The sky was binding us and holding us together. Many times I would lift my head to the sky at the darkest hours, and would look for those three eyes, I gaze at them and they would gaze back at me. No matter where I would be, they will be there for me.
There was peyote growing from the forehead of the night that gazed at me. Electric beam of light was piercing veils and ending up in the pupil of the one, who I saw separate of me. Magnetic strings connected us. One beam from forehead to your third eye, and from the belly of the beast they ends up locking on my throat. I collect it all, but I protect myself, the leather collar and four spikes, for each season. I collect it, but I'm not touched by it. I saw peyote only in the screen. I stand as mannequin, without resistance, no hands, you lift yours. Twelve spikes, for each month.
My head is a white glowing sphere. Instead of reflecting the light, it reflects the dark. Itself it looks more white than black. The black dot is like a fish, it is Ying Yang at birth.
I do not resist therefore I have no hands. I absorb.
You, who stand before me, the gesture of your arms suggest me thoughts of power and control. I'll call you Tuatara.
We will play this game now of opposite or contrary forces, who are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world. We will give rise to each other as we interrelate to one another. My head is expanding and contracting. The black dot is too. And your heart.
There was the heavy presence hanging in the sky. Three glowing dark eyes, nothing like stars. The sky was binding us and holding us together. Many times I would lift my head to the sky at the darkest hours, and would look for those three eyes, I gaze at them and they would gaze back at me. No matter where I would be, they will be there for me.
There was peyote growing from the forehead of the night that gazed at me. Electric beam of light was piercing veils and ending up in the pupil of the one, who I saw separate of me. Magnetic strings connected us. One beam from forehead to your third eye, and from the belly of the beast they ends up locking on my throat. I collect it all, but I protect myself, the leather collar and four spikes, for each season. I collect it, but I'm not touched by it. I saw peyote only in the screen. I stand as mannequin, without resistance, no hands, you lift yours. Twelve spikes, for each month.
My head is a white glowing sphere. Instead of reflecting the light, it reflects the dark. Itself it looks more white than black. The black dot is like a fish, it is Ying Yang at birth.
I do not resist therefore I have no hands. I absorb.
You, who stand before me, the gesture of your arms suggest me thoughts of power and control. I'll call you Tuatara.
We will play this game now of opposite or contrary forces, who are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world. We will give rise to each other as we interrelate to one another. My head is expanding and contracting. The black dot is too. And your heart.