The Mountains Never Sleep V

Brigita Lastauskaite

Acrylic, natural pigments on canvas, stiching 

101 x 101 cm

2025

Brigita and I hit it off at the opening of the National Emerging Art Prize in 2025. We met as finalists in the prize. One of the unexpected gifts of attending without a plus one is that you’re pushed to mingle and step out of your comfort zone—and I’m glad I did, because it led to meeting artists like Brigita. It wasn’t only her work that left a lasting impression, but also her energy and kindness.

I’ve admired her work ever since. There’s something very immediate and visceral about her paintings that stays with you long after seeing them. Brigita’s practice is rooted in feeling rather than representation—her work doesn’t try to replicate a landscape so much as evoke a sense of place.

I’m drawn to the spontaneity in her process, the rawness of her marks, and the way she builds layered, organic forms that feel almost woven or submerged. Her fascination with the underwater world comes through in shifting, unexpected seascapes, held together by a distinct visual language of gestural marks, texture, and intuitive colour.

Artist Bio

Brigita Lastauskaite is a Lithuanian-born Australian artist who has been based in Melbourne since 1998. She completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Vilnius Art Academy and later studied at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg with Professor Tone Fink (Austria, 2013). The following year she was awarded a scholarship to study with French art duo Annie & Patrick Poirier. Brigita has been a finalist in major awards, including the Mosman, NEAP, Fisher’s Ghost, Blacktown, and Hutchins Art Prizes, and has undertaken residencies in Finland, Lithuania, Japan and Tasmania. Her work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Australia and internationally. Deeply fascinated by landscape, organic forms, and textures, Brigita creates paintings that evoke a feeling of place rather than replicate a scene. Her process is spontaneous and visceral, marked by gestural calligraphic marks, layered textures, and distinctive colour harmonies.

About the work 

This painting was created during my residency in Queenstown, Tasmania, as part of the series The Mountains Never Sleep. Living and working within this landscape, I spent extended time observing the shifting light and complex textures of the surrounding mountains, particularly the remnants of old mining sites near Mt. Owen. The scarred surfaces, exposed strata, and mineral-stained slopes reveal an ongoing dialogue between geological time, human extraction, erosion, and renewal. The work was painted on loose canvas and later stitched onto a stained support, preserving the raw edges and traces of its making. The stains, created from Tasmanian clay and soil, physically ground the painting in the land that inspired it. Rather than simply depicting the landscape, the work becomes materially connected to it—holding within its surface the presence, memory, and enduring weight of place.

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To purchase this work please contact Harriet Links through her website.