Kostas Ulevicius

Kostas Ulevicius is an American-Lithuanian artist set out on a journey in search of an Ideal Face. His art belongs to far more than one country of origin, encompasses a lot more than the artistic traits of one cultural context, and transcends the boundaries of one spiritual tradition. A son of a Gulag and Nazi prison survivor, Ulevicius had the opportunity to witness through his own family history the cruelty of totalitarian regimes, the impermanence of empires and the fragility of human life. It is not surprising then that his art attempts at addressing the values that do not easily change with time and context, and above all – the harmony that emerges from silent contemplation and solitude. Born and educated in Lithuania, the country that has endured a nearly total destruction of its Jewish community by Nazis as well as the persecution of the Catholic Church and all other religious communities by the Soviets, Kostas Ulevicius is in constant search of his own individual form of spirituality and humanism. His art asserts the locus for such spirituality to be The Face of the Other, almost as if in accord with the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.