“In my art, I usually tend to depict this World how I see it, or show it from a completely different perspective that people are not used to seeing. The stories of my paintings often come to me in my dreams, or when I’m meditating. Sometimes it happens spontaneously in the process of making art; while one painting is created, other five ones are born in my mind. Then art for me is also expression of powerful emotions and diving deep into yourself. When I’m painting, it is important for me to be in a certain emotional spike that will stay on the canvas or paper, and will start its own separate life, slowly embedding the world around it.”

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          Zana Miniotaite was born in 1987 in Petrozavodsk, into the family of a composer and a violin tutor. From early childhood, Zana studied art: music and visual art. Zana has studied music since the age of two with her mom, and when she turned three, Zana first performed on stage. At the same time, she was sent to Marina and Gennadiy Nikitns’ art studio. From the very beginning, her mentors trained her to search her own vision and unique thinking, both in design and expression planes.

          Art studies was not chosen for the girl from musicians’ family by chance – many of the girl’s relatives from her father line were talented painters. Half of Zhanna’s ancestors were amateur artists, but many of them chose a path of professional artists: her grandfather was a famous Lithuanian architect, and some of his children, nephews and nieces graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts on architecture and design.

          Later in life, Zana distanced herself from painting to turn closer to music. In 1996, when her family moved to Vilnius – the homeland of Zana’s grandfather – a repressed Lithuanian, she was sent to a music school to study cello. In 2017, Zana graduated from Moscow State Conservatory, studying cello with such well-known mentors as Boris Andrianov and Aleksandr Rudin. At the moment, Zana performs as a soloist in different European and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries.

         

          „At the time when I was studying cello in college, I had a dream. I had a dream about wanting to paint so intensely, and I was running around the house looking for paints, but I couldn’t find anything. When I woke up the same day, my dad and I went to visit an art shop and bought everything we needed. It was the first moment of my comeback to fine art. At this time, I created my first pieces with oil paints using the technique of graphic portraits”.

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          Zana’s art is diverse and unique. From realistic graphic portraits to naive childish gouache paintings, from thick layers of oil paint to thin, blurry abstractions. Almost every painting by this artist has its own music piece, specially created by her father – Viktor Miniotas.

          Zana currently lives and works in Vilnius (Lithuania).