Stasys EIDRIGEVICIUS (b. 1949), Santorini

bronze; height: 33 cm;
Signed on back: Stasys;
circulation: 1/3.
Graphic artist, painter, sculptor, creator of ex-librises, illustrator originally from Lithuania. He graduated from the Vilnius Institute of Fine Arts in 1973 and has lived in Poland since 1980. The artist has won many awards at international exhibitions and competitions, including the International Biennial of Contemporary Exlibris in Malbork (1973, 1975), Interexlibris in Frederikshavn (1979-82), International Exhibition of Illustrations for Children in Bratislava (1979, 1981). In 1981 he received the award of the Polish Society of Book Publishers, 1984 the Prime Minister's Award, and in 1986 the Grand Prix at the International Competition for Children's Book Illustration in Barcelona. In 1994, the weekly magazine Polityka awarded the artist a "Passport" for lifetime achievement. In 1999. Stasys received the Gold Medal at the Polish Poster Biennale in Katowice. In 2000, the artist was awarded the Lithuanian Order of Gediminas, and in 2001 the Lithuanian National Prize in Art.
Stasys Eidrigevicius' works are in the collections of the National Museums in Warsaw, Wroclaw, Poznan and Szczecin, the British Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Library in Washington, the Creation Gallery in Tokyo and the Vatican Museum in Rome.
The world created by Eidrigevičius is fairy-tale and fantastic, full of symbolism. The artist combines real elements with elements taken from the imagination, surreal. His most common subject is portraits of people with heavily transformed and deformed faces-masks.
"I observe carefully the people around me. I look at their faces, figures, movements. From these crumbs of reality I constantly create my own theater of gestures and silhouettes" - Stasys Eidrigevicius.