Gytis Simaitis

Lives and works in Bronx, NY, USA

Artist statement

Often small things can go unnoticed. Sometimes it's a matter of scale corralling perception, as when our eyes cannot resolve smallness and only magnification reveals an object or its minute essence. Sometimes it's the lack of a frame, a focusing device, that could bring the seemingly inane into the spotlight of our rapidly-cycling gaze. Under the umbrage of scientific or botanical illustration some of these hurdles are cleared while bringing up new ones: those of plain communicative purpose, of duty-bound verisimilitude, of the most apt specimen. I like the broken, the fragment, the desiccated, the burst. In the making process, I like to distort, or clarify, or exaggerate, or create stories of light and shadow where none exist. Uncertainty leaks in: how big is this thing? Is it animal or vegetable or mineral? What is it, exactly? By mostly divesting of the delicacies of composition and plopping objects [close] to dead-center, I enjoy the "plain-ness" of the entry point into seeing. By having only one specimen, there are no referents to be busily informing, no obligate narratives to engage between the two or more. Finally, I like the mark. Especially I like it deliberate and considered and purposeful--though not necessarily slow. Networks of little black marks build up in layers over time, and here I welcome dialogue and delicate dances. Echoes of beginnings and adjustments bleed gently past boundaries. May the take-away be that one sees [even is enraptured by] the tiniest...

Artwork