Josonia Palaitis
Artist

Josonia Palaitis demonstrates paint mixing
in her Sydney studio. The Childers memorial
Painting can be seen on the easel behind

'John Howard and Janette Howard', 2000,
oil painting by Josonia Palaitis,
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

'John Mills', 1992, oil painting by
Josonia Palaitis, Tweed River
Regional Art Gallery Collection
Josonia Palaitis was born into a world of art and artists in Sydney in 1949. Her father, John Mills, a leading illustrator for the Australian Women’s Weekly is without doubt Jo’s greatest artistic influence. Growing up surrounded by the visual arts gave her an early start in learning how to paint. She went on to receive formal art training, graduating from the National Art School in East Sydney in 1972. In 1984 she received a Bachelors Degree in Art from the City Art Institute (UNSW), Sydney.
Travelling to Papua New Guinea for a brief holiday in 1973, she met and married Australian-Lithuanian Ed Palaitis, a surveyor. For the next two years living in PNG she began painting portraits of the indigenous people in both their daily attire and full ceremonial dress. A talent for portrait painting and a keen interest in the realist style of painting was apparent from this early stage of her career.
Since that time Josonia Palaitis has become one of Australia`s most acclaimed artists and is now enjoying a distinguished career. Her hard-working ethos and the thrill she experiences as the canvas comes to life ensure her continuing professional success and personal contentment in life. Her achievements thus far are notable.
In 2000 she was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint a double portrait of the Prime Minister John Howard and Janette Howard. The painting now hangs at the NPG, Old Parliament House, Canberra.
She was also chosen to paint the Childers Memorial Portrait depicting the 15 young backpackers who perished in the Queensland hostel fire in 2000. This epic painting was unveiled in Childers to universal acclaim in 2002.
She won the 1994 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize ($100,000) with a portrait of her father, and the 1995 Archibald People’s Choice Award with her meticulously detailed portrait of Australian cartoonist Bill Leak.

Through her many solo exhibitions Palaitis has shown her versatility as an artist with skillful landscape and still-life paintings in both oils and watercolour.

Interest in her work has inspired Josonia Palaitis to establish her colourful studio website www.jpstudio.com.au where further reading and pictures can be seen. Josonia Palaitis has exhibited with the Sydney Lithuanian Art and Craft Association and Lithuanian Days Festivals.

Josonia Palaitis - Solo Exhibition Metamorphoses
At Hardware Gallery, Enmore in Sydney, 07 Dec - 9 Feb 2008


Josonia Palaitis - Icarus and Daedalus
Metamorphoses is the artist’s twelfth solo exhibition. She has also participated in thirty-five exhibitions from 1979 – 2007. In portraiture she has won many prizes:

People’s Choice award, Salon des Refusés, Sydney/Australia for the portrait of Yawuru Man, Patrick Dodson (1998),
People’s Choice Award, Archibald Prize, Sydney for Bill Leak’s portrait (1995),
People’s Choice Award Salon des Refusés for Paul Lyneham’s portrait (1992),
Doug Moran National Portrait Prize John Mills (1994),
National Portrait Gallery inaugural commission of double portrait of Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Janette Howard portrait (2000),
Childers Memorial Commission, Queensland (2002) and some other prizes.


Josonia Palaitis - Tsiphone
It is interesting to note that in this exhibition based on Ovid’s (Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC - 17? AD) Metamorphoses, in which the Roman poet has incorporated the ancient Myths and Legends in his 27 poems, the modern artist Josonia Palaitis added a touch of the 21st century modus vivendi and subtle ironic dashes in her paintings. The size of the 25 pictures is small and varies from 20x20 cm. to 20x30cm.They are painted with oil paints on linen and well framed. In some pictures painted borders in the Roman mosaic style add an echo of and an allusion to antiquity.

Josonia Palaitis - Erysichton`s Punishment
As far as Josonia’s choice and depiction of topics are concerned, she freely admits to being influenced by the old masters like Botticelli, Goya, Caravaggio and others. However, she also states that: "...Mostly my ideas materialised spontaneously and I went with the flow." So, yes! There seems to be a common departure point in the compositions of the old masters and her conception, but in developing the theme Josonia gradually wears away from this commonality and adds more and more artistic elements of her creative imagination.
What is completely unexpected is that below each picture is an extract from the relevant poem and often a cheeky remark by the painter herself. The Flood reminds contemporary viewers not only of the biblical flood, but also of the 21st century. Scourge - climate warming and tsunamis. In the picture Mars and Venus the gods ride bicycles on the

Josonia Palaitis - Minerva and the Muses
Olympian streets. Icarus’ supposedly enraptured expression, accentuated by the tilt of his head, is juxtaposed to neatly falling feathers, one by one from his wings, as the young man flies closer and closer to the sun goddess. Tisiphone, the underworld witch, has snakes coiling around her body, but in her hand she holds what looks like a modern torch. Even the most cruel picture Erysichton’s Punishment makes the public chuckle to see with what glee and haste Erysichton gobbles up his own knee. In Minerva and the Muses the artist introduces a typically Australian touch, i.e. a clothes hoist around which the muses are energetically dancing. The Danae of the Ancient World conceived Perseus when Zeus came to her in prison as a shower of gold. In the 21st century version of the artist, Danae stands in a modern shower and a shower of what looks suspiciously like coins falling on her from above. In every one of the artist’s pictures the observant viewer will find a symbol of modernity and a pun.

Josonia Palaitis - Danae
Josonia’s painting style has also changed. Her painstaking photorealism, or to use the artist’s expression "my usual meticulous realism", has given way to a more sweeping figurative and narrative style. It is such a welcome surprise to see how the main characters blend into the background. Gone are the fine brushstrokes, generous, more fluid ones that give the theme an air of unreality replace them. The topics and the characters in the scene are creations of fantasy and call forth in the viewer’s eye and mind a different conception of the legend or myth. The viewer realises that nothing much has changed in human lives. While the colours are lighter in the artist’s palette, the heroes appear in antique accoutrements, while the heroines sometimes in free flowing shifts. The supernatural beings are depicted as ephemerous bluish or greyish ghosts. These features contribute to the unreality of the narrative content.
As mentioned before, some pictures remind of other painters who have for centuries tackled themes of legends and myths. The artist Josonia Palaitis has acknowledged her debt to them in the literature distributed to the viewers. However, I must stress that it is not the case of a déjà vu. No. It is a transformed and individualised version that confronts our eyes. In picture 17 in the catalogue Bacchus is not Caravaggio’s young man getting merry on the juice of grapes. In Josonia’s version the Bacchus’ pose is more that of a dissipated man - not a young god. Furthermore, his drinking companions are turned into fishes that swim around. To my mind comes the adage "drinks like a fish".
It is a fascinating narrative exhibition that makes the public smile at the artist’s ingenuity of giving a modern touch to ancient myths and legends. Or as Publius Ovidius Naso has aptly said: "Changes of shape, new forms, are the main theme, which my spirit impels me now to recite". Just substitute the word recite with paint, and it would well fit Josonia Palaitis’ creative endeavours in this pictorial exhibition.

Further information: www.hardwaregallery.com.au

Isolde Poþelaitë - Davis AM
Sydney, 19.12.2007