Collage Oskar Minkowski

Oskar Minkowski is a 14 m² collage of about 4,000 used insulin pens and paint, made in 2022 for the endocrinology department of Kaunas Clinics.

Oskar Minkowski was born in Kaunas in 1858. His research became the basis of synthetic insulin production, and his discoveries affect my life every day. He spent the first fourteen years of his life in Aleksotas, Kaunas, crossing the Nemunas by the bridge to the old town on his way to school. I tried to imagine how he would see his home town if he could return at the height of his career. I could not paint him from life, so the portrait comes from historical photographs, helped by Prof. Aleksandras Vitkus’s article on the Minkowskis’ Kaunas.

The sky and the Nemunas are made of the pens. For the sky I chose light grey ones, the colour of the Lithuanian sky and also the sadder side of the story, his leaving his homeland; for the river, light blue, dark blue and grey.