My name is Jolanta Talaikiene. I was born and raised in Vilnius, the capital city of Eastern European country – Lithuania. Here I graduated from a gymnasium and finished graphic design studies in the Art Academy of Vilnius.
After studies I had an opportunity to work at Vilnius Film Studios where I have been drawing cartoons for some time. After that I have been teaching design at the Design Institute of Vilnius. Parallely, I have been freelancing: illustrating children’s books and creating logos and branding for private clientele.
I came to the United States of America in 2011, this is where and when my journey as a painter had begun. I have been avoiding paint and colors for more than forty years but once I came to the USA something switched, the restrictive upbringing that I have experienced in a Soviet country during my childhood and youth no longer had any effect on me. I have embraced colors and freed myself and my art. I had finally felt an outpouring of all the accumulated but unexpressed work I had kept inside for so long.
Now, when seeing what I have accomplished I notice that all my work tends to be painted in the ‘moonlight palette’, cool, mystic and deep. Somehow I feel that these tones express my inner conversations the best. I write my own stories with surreal subjects and vivid symbols, combining myths and scientific explorations. I set riddles that made people wonder for centuries: who we are, why we are, where are we from and where are we headed… without knowing the answers myself I let the graphic elements and details hint the observers (me included), and direct us to the right direction, which is different for everyone. My wish is to make the viewer go deeper than my paintings, go through them directly to the hidden world of their own minds and souls.
I feel that my art is doing what I want it to do, people spend a lot of time observing the details in every painting. Receiving professional recognition is also a sign that I follow my direction. The recent achievement is receiving two gold medals from “The International Galleries and Art Professionals Choices Competition” for my painting “The Dream Catcher.”