Juratė
Bytautė

I am Jūratė Bytautė.
In 1999, I graduated from the S. Žukas Art College in Kaunas, where I studied the restoration of antique
paintings. There I learned to feel, value, and understand the layers of time.
In 2003, I graduated from the Kaunas Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in painting — where I began
searching for my own language, breaking boundaries, and shaping my own form of expression.
These two paths merged in my work: restoration taught me to see time as a layer, and painting allowed me
to convey it.

Finding my own language
I knew I would depict some kind of mysterious layers — I just couldn't fully grasp what they were.
In the early years, I collected old objects that spoke only to me and joined them with layers of paint on
small canvases. The artefacts helped feeling take form — they were like anchors that time could hold

onto.
In time, I understood: I no longer needed the objects. The feeling had learned to speak on its own.

Today
Today I paint on a larger scale. Without artefacts, without objects — only layers.
The layers of paint begin to speak. They draw you in. They stir memories that aren't mine — memories
from deeper still, from a time when people were brave enough to live, to fight, to weep, and to laugh more
fiercely.
And none of it has disappeared.
The layers of time are right beside us — we only need to close our eyes and touch them.
I search for those layers. I gather them, and I give them presence in the now.
This is my place.