While researching on the portraits of Kristijonas Donelaitis (the famous Lithuanian poet who has no known portaits that have documentary credibility), I found out that the similarities between the traits in his early portraits were rather vague and the scientific reconstructions of Donelaitis’ face were imprecise. During my searches of a correct portrait I not only tried out old strategies of portraiture, but created new ones. By resorting to the cranial reconstruction methodologies used in criminology, I attempted to create my own reconstruction of the poet’s face. The reconstruction and the research revealed an inevitable subjectivity of such a creative endeavour. By trying to avoid subjectivity, I created an ‘ultra-objective’ concept of craniometric portraiture at the basis of which were the scientific measurements of a cranium. The resulting portrait came out cold and formal, so I created an alternative method of ethical self-portraiture which no longer had pretense toward objectivity. The key of this method is relinquishing the pretentious aim of objectivity through an incorporation of the scientific data into a subjective self-portrait, not unlike the incorporation of the holy relics into the portraits of the saints in order to make them more ‘realistic’. This was how “Donelaitis, Self-Portrait-Style” and “Generic Donelaitis” were painted. The first work bears obvious traits of my own self-portrait, while the second work openly declares the similarity with the earlier speculative portraits of the poet, thus distancing itself from the searches of the ‘true’ image.
The cult of personality sometimes manifests through the desire to acquire the likeness of an adorned leader. According to the classical scientists, things like body language, dressing style, facial expression and the shape of the skull were all traits of personality. By copying Oginskis’ craniometric points from one of his portraits, I tried to become a diplomat, politician, an uprising leader, and a composer.
"IN" —these are the two letters that separate the name of Žygimantas Augustas (1520–1572), the Great Duke of Lithuania and the King of Poland, from my own name. This grammatical difference becomes a pretext for an impersonation.
In order to find the limits of the lie generated by images, I explored the possibilities of incorporating a kettle into a human portrait. I created a system of kettle-craniometry which allowed me to paint Homo Catinus (the kettle human) in accordance with the Western European traditions of portraiture.
