Hello, I'm Monika I. A..

Monika Ivaškaitė-Aukštuolė (b. 1992) is a painter based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Painting is the language through which she finds it easiest to express herself. Through it she conveys an inner world of images that often feel fragile and indistinct, yet gain a clearer form once they settle onto the canvas. Her work moves between different genres, particularly portrait (or human figure in general) and landscape. Viewers frequently notice themes of childhood in her paintings. As one art critic observed, the artist speaks about “infantilism” not only through her subjects but also through a partially reconstructed naïve, almost adolescent painterly manner. Childhood in her work appears as a complex phenomenon of memory – something both real and transformed by time. What remains in memory becomes an illusion. Its vividness is expressed through color, ranging from dark to luminous tones. Some paintings carry a sense of humor, others a quiet melancholy. Her works feature various characters, some drawn from childhood photographs and others from imagination, each painting reflecting real or fictional stories inspired by memories, children’s books, and fantasy.