Mountains Never Sleep I, 2025

My recent paintings continue my exploration of the intangible within contemporary approach to landscape painting, embedding themes of spontaneity, fluidity & renewal. I think of my pieces as imaginative, implosive landscapes, held on a flat surface. I am interested in the texture, rhythm and the feel of experience, not in the content or meaning.I want my paintings to convey the flowing, flooding, churning and undulating energies of nature, as it is in constant motion and renewal. My paintings carry with them evocations of a gentle breeze, restless waves, outrageous storms, spays of light or spring fragrances wafted in on the dripping flow of paint. My work is process-based and I aim to preserve traces of the multiple layers, as nature embeds itself in every pebble, rock, shell or tree trunk. Each painting conveys a different mood or state of being, as if viewing the landscape through my subjective filter of the moment. I like mixing abstraction with hints of more recognisable nature forms and shapes, but aim to leave enough room for the poetry, mystery and open interpretation, which is what nature is for me. As artist Phillip Guston says, “Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.” This particular painting was done during my recent art residency at Q Bank gallery in Queenstown Tasmania. I was painting on unstretched canvases. I have mounted /stitched them directly on the stained stretched canvases for the purpose of display, as I didn’t want to lose the edges. For the stain, I used some clay & dirt that I collected at the confluence of King & Queen rivers, near Queenstown, as a remembrance of being on Tasmanian soil when I made this series.

Brigita Lastauskaite is a Lithuanian-born Australian artist, based in Melbourne since 1998. She completed a Master of Fine Art at the Vilnius Art Academy, Lithuania. Brigita studied at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg with Professor Tone Fink (Austria) in 2013 and received a scholarship to study the following year with French art duo Professor Annie & Patrick Poirier. She is a finalist at Mosman, Fisher’s Ghost, Blacktown and Hutchins Art Awards and received Art residencies in Finland, Lithuania and Tasmania. She has held nine solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions, both in Australia and overseas.
She has always been fascinated by the landscape, and organic forms and textures. Her paintings are not intended to replicate a scene, but rather evoke a feeling and a sense of place. Brigita’s paintings are visceral and relate to inward feeling rather than to intellect. Her painting process is spontaneous and raw, and her visual language features abstract textural shapes, gestural calligraphic marks and unique colour combinations.
Brigita’s fascination with the underwater world and snorkelling is clearly evident in her art practice. Her unexpected seascapes appear in ever changing new ways, but organic textural marks that remind of a hand-woven tapestry remain distinct to her artistic style.