Ruta Jusionyte – Bronze Minotaur

The Minotaur – Ruta Jusionyte

The Bronze Minotaur is one of the artist’s emblematic totemic figures.

Created using the lost-wax casting technique, it adopts a meditative posture: folded legs, crossed arms, and a head that is part bovine, part human. The bronze enhances the sculptural volumes and gives the work a warm brown patina accented with golden highlights. The artist’s characteristic upward-building process remains visible, preserving traces of the modelling and emphasizing the expression of the eyes.

The minotaur is an archetype drawn from ancient mythology, yet Jusionyte reinterprets it by giving it a benevolent role. Her works suggest that sensuality and tenderness can emerge even from monsters. The closed eyes invite meditation and introspection, as though this hybrid being were searching for its place between the human and animal worlds. A subtle sense of humour remains present: this monster seems almost ready to listen to your secrets.

This sculpture forms part of a broader reflection on animality, as the artist explores the idea that humans and animals share emotions and thoughts.

Because of its scale, the work is equally suited to a contemporary interior or an intimate garden setting. By choosing bronze, Jusionyte gives permanence to this legendary figure while continuing her exploration of the myths that connect cultures across the world.

Ruta Jusionyte has developed a body of work that is instantly recognizable, at the crossroads of Neo-Expressionism and Magical Realism. Born in 1978 in Lithuania, she lives and works in France and has established herself as a significant figure on the contemporary European art scene.

Her work explores the relationships between humans and animals, in compositions where figures intertwine, respond to one another, and protect each other. Horses, hares, elephants, and hybrid creatures embody inner forces, between instinct and consciousness. Through a warm palette and dense materiality, she develops a powerful pictorial language, both accessible and deeply symbolic.

Awarded the Académie des Beaux-Arts Prize in 2019, Ruta Jusionyte is now sought after by collectors drawn to a form of painting where emotion and visual intensity converge.