Auguste Lu (Augustė Lubickaitė) is a Lithuanian contemporary artist, born in Klaipėda and based in Yokohama, Japan. A 2020 fine-arts graduate of the Eduardas Balsys Gymnasium of Arts in Klaipėda, she works in acrylic ink, water, charcoal and pastel on raw canvas to make atmospheric abstractions about what we miss while we are living it. Her touring solo exhibition DUALITY: Our Divided Selves has been shown in Tokyo and Nagoya, including at the Frederick Harris Gallery, Tokyo American Club (2026), and she exhibits regularly with Gallery CHARLOTTE.USAGI. In 2025 she represented Lithuania at Pre-Expo Kyoto.
BACKGROUND
Auguste’s path to painting ran through sound before canvas. Trained first in classical music, she brings musical structure — time, tension, release — into her visual practice. Musical terms become philosophical questions: rubato as the freedom to live at an inner rather than external pace, fermata as the right to pause. The composition of a painting and the composition of a life are, for her, the same inquiry.
The turning point came right before her move to Japan. An unexpected medical emergency forced a pause, and with it came the realization that waiting for the right moment was a risk she could no longer take. She committed to painting in the present. That decision marks the beginning of the practice she continues to develop today.
NOMAD INFLUENCE
After graduating in Lithuania, Auguste spent three years in the United Kingdom before moving to Japan in 2023. Every city she has lived in — Klaipėda, Portsmouth, Yokohama — has been a port city. Water has been the constant: in the places she has chosen and in the medium she works with, poured onto raw canvas, impossible to fully control, absorbed and irreversible.
However, it was Japan that redirected her fully toward painting. When local canvases didn’t respond to her water-diluted technique, she was forced to experiment — eventually building her own surfaces and working on the raw, unprimed side of the canvas. What started as necessity became her visual language.
INSPIRATION
Auguste’s work asks what we miss while we are living it: the contradictions we carry within ourselves, the ordinary moments that were never recorded, the inner rhythm swept away by the world’s pace. These are the things that remain invisible while you are inside them. Painting creates the distance that makes them visible.
Solo Exhibitions
2026
- Among Stillness and Breath – Gallery CHARLOTTE.USAGI, Yokohama, Japan
- DUALITY: Our Divided Selves – Frederick Harris Gallery, Tokyo American Club, Tokyo, Japan
2025
- Zen Garden – Gallery CHARLOTTE.USAGI, Yokohama, Japan
- DUALITY: Our Divided Selves – G Keyakizaka, Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan
- DUALITY: Our Divided Selves – Gallery Eureka, Nagoya, Japan
2024
- Elegant Catharsis – Studio Šviesos ir Kūrybos Namai, Klaipėda, Lithuania
Group Exhibitions & Events
2026
- Abstract Beyond Borders: WORLDTIMES Gallery, Hyogo, Japan
2025
- Marginal Art Fair Fukushima Hirono: Unresolved Landscapes – Fukushima, Japan
- Art Festival – Gallery GK, Ginza, Tokyo, Japan
- Pre-Expo Kyoto – International Community House, Kyoto, Japan (Representing Lithuania)
2024
- Ishikawa-cho Fall Festival – Public Painting, Gallery CHARLOTTE.USAGI, Yokohama, Japan
2020
- End-of-Year Graduation Exhibition – Eduardas Balsys Gymnasium of Arts, Klaipėda, Lithuania
Corporate Art Placements
2026
- Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd. Head Office – Tokyo, Japan (Sept 2026–Mar 2027), curated by The Chain Museum
- Osaka Hankyu Twin Towers – Osaka, Japan, curated by The Chain Museum
Education
2014–2020 — Diploma in Fine Arts, Eduardas Balsys Gymnasium of Arts, Klaipėda, Lithuania
2020–2023 — BSc Computer Games Technology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
"A painting is either a mirror or a window: you look at it and see yourself, or you look through it and see the world. "
