On Thursday, June 18, at 5:30 p.m., the JUSIONIS Art Gallery (located in the “Herkaus Galerija” Fashion and Business Center, 22 Herkaus Manto St.), an exhibition by Valentinas Ajauskas (1948–2023) titled “Jazz” will open.

The exhibition features Valentinas Ajauskas’s latest series of paintings, “Jazz,” which playfully depicts intertwined male and female figures. The paintings reveal the artist’s experience in graphic art, watercolor, and painting. The silhouetted depiction of figures, so characteristic of his graphic work, speaks here with great power and monumentality. The large formats allow the artist to convey the characteristic features of men and women with a broad stroke, moving away from realistic depiction to create musical forms. They float against a monochromatic, bright, or gray flat background, clearly defined, sometimes cast, reminiscent of modern sculptures. In a literary sense, this is the artist’s hymn to the love between a man and a woman—festive, joyful, and dynamic.

Valentinas Ajauskas (1948–2023) was born in Kaunas. From 1966 to 1973, he studied graphic arts at the Vilnius Art Institute (now the Vilnius Academy of Arts). He has been a member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Union since 1980.

The artist worked in the fields of printmaking (etching, screen printing), painting, bookplates, posters, book illustration, and caricature. He has participated in exhibitions since 1970. He organized 32 solo exhibitions of paintings and prints and participated in over 200 group exhibitions in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, the U.S., Canada, France, and Australia.

He has won 34 awards for his graphic art. The most significant of these include: first place at the International Graphic Art Biennial in Moldova (2013); Won the Sint-Niklaas City Award for Best Ex-Libris at the International Ex-Libris and Small Graphics Competition in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) for an ex-libris he created (2009); Winner of the “Sun and Moon” International Ex-Libris Competition in Argentina, held at the Claudio Leon Sempere Museum (2004).

His works have been acquired by the Vilnius Art Museum, the M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas, the Del Bello Gallery in Toronto (Canada), the Museum of Humor and Satire in Gabrovo (Bulgaria), and collectors from various countries.

The exhibition will run until August 6, 2026.