2024 August 1-31 "Voyages" and "Times" exhibitions of Jonas Nekrašius photographs are open in the Šiauliai Art Gallery.
Exhibition opens on August 1 at 5:30 p.m. in Šiauliai art gallery. Visiting exhibitions during the opening is free.
About the „Voyages“ photo exhibition
Life is a one-way trip. “Planning a trip is a joy. Carrying out the trip is hard labor. Remembering the trip is the reward for everything. In fact, life is a journey. … Memories remain a reward, which, it seems, is much more valuable than the fact itself. It is the enrichment of the inside of a person, a test of friendship, patience and passions. So what is a trip? … To travel means to shake off all everyday, low-value, defective dust, to forget small and sometimes larger intrigues, to renew and supplement one’s inner self – to become a bigger person,” said the traveler and anthropologist Antanas Poška (1903-1902).
People travel by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, car, train, plane, ship and other means. Travel by land, water and air. I have traveled a lot in my life. I participated in educational and tourist trips, scientific expeditions, mountain hikes, sailing with kayaks, yachts, boats, sailing ships and sea liners on cruises. I have visited more than 80 countries and nations. Traveled in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Japan, China, South Korea, Nepal, Greece, India, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Malta, Cyprus, Scotland, Switzerland, Ukraine and other countries. Various lands and continents, mountains and islands, cities and megacities, lakes and rivers, woods and forests have been visited. The people and nature I met were the most memorable on these trips. During the organized expeditions, the places of life and activity of the sailor, photographer and traveler Oleg Truchan (1923-1972) from Šiauliai were visited in Germany, Australia and Tasmania. With the Travel Journalists Club of the Union of Lithuanian Journalists, we traveled to the places of the Grand Duchess of Lithuania in Western Ukraine, the paths of anthropologist Antanas Poška in India and the Andaman Islands, the places of life of the traveler and photographer Paulius Normantas (1948-2017) in Lithuania and Hungary, etc. During recent trips, the Atlantic and Indian oceans, Madeira and the Canary Islands left a huge impression. Traveled through the places where Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) lived in Madeira, La Gomera and the Canary Islands. in 2024 in the months of October-November, together with the Travel Journalists’ Club of the Lithuanian Journalists’ Union, we are planning a trip with the author of the books “10,000 Kilometers” and “Automobile around Europe”, Lithuanian journalist and traveler Vincas Uždavinis (1902-1983), French writer, Nobel Prize laureate Albert Camus (1913 -1960) and philosopher and theologian St. Augustine (354-430) on his way around Algeria. I take photos and videos during trips and expeditions. I have amassed a vast archive of the anthropology of travel. In this exhibition, I share some of what I consider to be memorable photos and images from expeditions. When I travel, I am most attracted to people of different nations who speak their own language, follow their traditions, customs, and their usual way of life. In the portraits of people and their household photographs, I tried to capture what I remembered at that time, what allowed me to feel the culture and aesthetics of the foreign country. I have always been attracted to traveling on yachts, boats and ocean liners. I am not indifferent to sailing and cruises. In 2023, I published the book “Sailors of Šiauliai and water sports”, which tells about the starts of sailors, their journeys crossing the Atlantic and other oceans. Therefore, it is not by chance that I chose the song “Voyage, Voyage” performed in French (music and lyrics by J.M. Rivat, D. Dubois) as the leitmotif for this exhibition.
– Jonas Nekrašius
About the (un)colored mobilography exhibition “Seasons of the Year”
The smartphone captures what the eye, the gaze, the lens sees at a given moment. Decorations, scenes, rhythm, images change. The pulse of the city and time change not only the face of the person, but also the face of the city. All this is captured in its details and fragments. Life in the city. Moments in everyday life. Everyone sees what is interesting, meaningful, unexpected, special. Clouds in the sky, reflections in the water, in the windows, shadows on the pavement, house walls. It’s all our world, which may not necessarily be big. Sometimes a small thing hides a deep thought, a coded idea, a mood. It is important to preserve a sense of discovery in your environment. It helps to discover the time and city code.
The city, like the people, lives its own life. This can also be seen from the images captured by the mobile phone. I almost never break up with him. It is my companion when I want to capture a stuck image or moment. Walking through the streets of my hometown Šiauliai when the sun is shining, when there is fog or howling wind, when it is raining or snowing, I catch something that sometimes remains unrecorded by my thoughts or vision. It is important to capture the moment, to feel the essence of an object or movement.
The photographs reflect the search for mood and essence, image resolution is related to the composition of form and content, details and fragments. All this helps to reveal to us ordinary things that many people do not notice or feel. The same items can be changed, supplemented, given a new expression, form or even content. This is what the author tries to convey in his photographs. The audience will decide how successful it was.
Photographs were taken with a mobile phone at different times: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Morning and day, evening and night. These are photographs from recent years. Some of them were published in the press, on the Facebook social network and on closed accounts of photographer groups. Some of the images have received favorable reviews from photographers and hobbyists around the world. The author has selected photographs suitable for the theme of the exhibition from his extensive personal archive and presents them to the audience. This exhibition is a puzzle of the author’s memory, complemented by the music of Antonius Vivaldi “The Seasons”. This fusion of audio and video can be felt and heard through media. The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of the author’s sister Virginia (1944-2024), who went to Annapolis at the beginning of this summer due to a serious illness. She saved the author of the exhibition’s life as a child, when he was drowning in a flooded ditch near his native house in Šiauliai during a spring flood. Happy watching, good mood and forgiving assessment!
– Jonas Nekrašius
About the author
Jonas Nekrašius (born on August 18, 1949 in Šiauliai) is a lawyer, lawyer, former judge, chairman of the district court of the Pakruoj district, culturist, local explorer, photographer, traveler. Since 1992 Lawyer at the Šiauliai law firm, since 2002. attorney at the firm of lawyer Jonas Nekrašiaus.Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Šiauliai University. Since 2005 Member of the Lithuanian Bar Council. Participated in ex-libris, graphics, photography and mail art exhibitions in Belgium, Japan, Spain, Holland, USA and other countries. Graduate and prize winner of dozens of photography competitions on the topic of travel and tourism. Organizer of international bookplate competitions in Šiauliai, organizer and manager of Bookplate Museum. Books “Creating a legal culture” (1982), “The court is coming” (1983), “The judge accepts” (1988), “Man came to court” (1988), “Ex libris. Artist Gerardas Bagdonavičius” (1998), “Ex libris. “Postilei” – 400″ by Mikalojaus Daukša (1999), “Fluxus: in this case” (together with G. Mažeikis, 2002), “Minčių namai” (2003), “Gubernija. Ex libris. Author and compiler of Saulės ziņu od 1665” (together with D. Dragūn, 2006) and other publications, author of about 1,500 popular articles, messages about law, morality, anthropology, culture, art, travels, famous people.2012 awarded the Matos Šalčias prize.
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Dear visitors, when participating in exhibition openings, you do not mind that they can be filmed or photographed, and their photos are published on the Šiauliai Art Gallery’s website, in the media or on social networks.
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