reviews

“The name of Igor Kalinauskas is widely known – being a practicing psychologist, a reputable business coach, the author of numerous publications, a musician and an artist – Igor Kalinauskas seems to embody the renaissance “universal man” concept. It is hard to hold back amazement when you first meet him. At his age he remains cheerful and energetic like a teenager, he is a tireless traveler, a competent and lively storyteller who is able to retain attention of large audiences. Kalinauskas is a striking example of a multifaceted human personality and how these facets can sparkle as a result of hard work aimed at internal resources activation.

The science of the XX century is known to have raised the issue of psychology of creativity, however, the interest was unilateral – scientists attempted to comprehend the origin of human creativity studying the examples of gifted creators. The phenomenon of a psychologist having turned to the fine arts is particularly interesting. It is quite obvious that being a recognized guru in practical psychology alongside with profound knowledge of its laws allowed Igor Kalinauskas to set his creative energy free and actualize himself as a multifaceted and artistically gifted personality.

Nowadays Igor Kalinauskas exhibits his works at variousarts centres and galleries all over the world. Appealing vitality and sincerity are distinctive features of Kalinauskas’ works for which they are greatly loved by his admirers. The major source of the force which can be felt from Kalinauskas’ works is the unique personality of the author, an inimitable story of a truly multitalented person.

The life history of Igor Kalinauskas is a fascinating saga worth turning into a film. Kalinauskas seems to live three lives varied with adventures, sharp turns and incredible coincidences. We shall reserve the detailed exposition of the amazing epic for biographers of the artist and let us only touch upon the facts of Kalinauskas' life which affected his formation as an original artist.

For a long while during the USSR times a graduate of the famous Schukin Theatre school Kalinauskas practiced his major profession with dozens of roles in theatrical performances on various stages of the country. It is not in vain that a noted russian theatre theorist Pyotr Yershov named his well-known work “ directing as Practical Psychology”. In fact, the profession of a stage director contributes greatly to deep penetration into the man’s inner world. And having chosen this uneasy profession Igor Kalinauskas soon discovered his interest in psychology. During the USSR times, as Kalinauskas notes, this interest was also boosted by the forbiddenness of the “fruit”. While logic was the first subject excluded from the curricula of institutes of higher education, it was psychology that was the second one.

At all times the passion for psychology did not just initiate “wonderful discoveries” but also disturbed Igor Kalinauskas greatly. Having plunged in the mysterious world of human soul, he couldn’t just confine himself to the traditional science, but concerned himself with alternative methods and esoteric studies. Nowadays the psychologist highly evaluates the experience gained in multiple confrontations of views with his scientific colleagues less disposed towards experiments.

Later on all these explorations of the artistic soul found their reflection in his creative works – the titles of numerous paintings, the early ones in particular, are marked with his passion for secret spiritual practices of different peoples and cultures. Kalinauskas started painting quite late, at the end of the 1990s, but before that he had taken up singing. Duet “DUO Zikr”, one of the soloists is Kalinauskas, celebrates its twentieth anniversary next year.

What was it that brought a successful, established person to the fine arts? As a rule most people at this age feeling need for creative work fear to confess it to themselves, while Igor Kalinauskas did not just dare confess, but also dedicated a great part of his life to painting... When you consider this sharp turn in the life of Igor Kalinauskas, it does not seem very surprising. The entire life of this outstanding person was followed with the fine arts alongside – being a stage director he daily encountered stage decorations, was on friendly terms with artists, displayed a keen interest in the fine arts. As a psychologist Igor Kalinauskas developed methods of human resources release and proved the efficiency of his know-how by his personal example.

Today Kalinauskas is one of the most successful practicing psychologists all over the post-soviet area, a business coach, the author of thirty books published in numerous languages, a musician and an enthusiastic artist. He can be rightly named a cosmopolitan – constantly travelling he never settles down for long in any city. The major points of his attraction are Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Vilnius, Bratislava and, certainly, Kiev where Kalinauskas comes from time to time since the early 1980s.

Igor Kalinauskas is a self-taught artist. But it is worth mentioning that in the world of modern art this term carries no suggestion of the pejorative – we know hundreds of examples when artists without professional education attained a breathtaking success on the world art-stage. Henri Rousseau and dozens of “naïve” artists comprising the gold world culture fund, Ukrainian artists Maria Prymachenko and Kateryna Bilokur – the history of arts of recent centuries definitely favours talents who lack academic degrees. Kalinauskas admits that he intentionally took up self-education, and as it was in his case that he took a couple of classic painting lessons from one of the best teachers from Saint Petersburg – and understood that this way led nowhere which was sure to destroy the vivid creative energy.

Energy is the key term in the art practice of Igor Kalinauskas. There is a huge energy flow in most of his works hiding behind simple performance. And it sets the audience into a vigorous vortex of emotions. “The more colour mixing, the stronger connection” – it is what graduates of classic fine art schools like to repeat. But this rule is not applied to Igor Kalinauskas. He is not scared to work with pure colours, to blend incompatible things, and he is not afraid to look naïve and incompetent. And this courage implies the power of the author and his great example for all who repress their desire to create and enjoy their creations.

Kalinauskas obviously enjoys his creative work to a great extent, he fancies talking about painting and its technology – lacquers, oils, colours and brushes. And it is this rough material aspect of the fine arts that arouses a special tenderness in the famous psychologist. “I would never manage to substitute photography, video or any other modern kind of art for painting” – he says. However, nowadays Kalinauskas definitely feels tight within the frames of painting and he is preparing his first series of sculptures for the exhibition in Kiev city art gallery “Lavra”.

Red, crimson, blue – these colours prevail in Kalinauskas’ palette and once more witness the strong energetic supply characteristic of his art. Clear tones, expressive performance – all these features bring the works by Kalinauskas closer to folk art. And especially they have common features with Mexican art, so called “retablo”, which gave inspiration to geniuses of the 20th century such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and others. The creative works by Kalinauskas have plenty of quotations – they refer to both Impressionism masterpieces and Fayum portrait. Thus, revising classics the painter finds his own unique fine art language.

Igor Kalinauskas tells interesting things about the fine arts which he appreciates for the experienced loneliness – that “good” loneliness being absolutely necessary for the adequate inner progress of man. And creative work does give a man a unique chance to stay in solitude and even to start a dialogue with resources and potentialities hidden deep inside our inner “self”. The entire art of Kalinauskas expatiates with the audience upon one “big” question – upon revelation of inner potential and upon both outer (social) and spiritual progress opportunity and necessity. Man has no right for indifference, as man is born an inspired and intellectual creature – Kalinauskas says. We all have a grain of divine energy, turning us from a plain blob of indifferent substance into unique creatures endowed with personality existence. This humanistic inspiration percolates through the entire work of the artist, and it is no surprise. It is man the artist finds the greatest inspiration in through all of his life either as a stage director and psychologist or a keen person having found happiness in standing in solitude by easel.

Kalinauskas’ works can be relatively divided into several major groups: portraits, landscapes and abstract paintings. These groups are not observed chronologically – Kalinauskas keeps devoting himself to every of his favorite kinds of creation. The borders between landscape and abstract paintings are quite relevant, so there are numerous works which balance between these two genres. The only thing hardly ever seen in his works is inanimate objects. Kalinauskas is not fond of painting objects, giving preference to any relative forms of animate substance.”

Alisa Lozhkina, art critic, еditor-in-chief, ART UKRAINE