Students were transported to another world when Belarusian artist Stanislavas Sugintas gave a lecture called “The Artist and His Muse: An Intimate Relationship” in the Memorial Union Tuesday.

Fish floated around beautiful nudes and unicorns galloped around jesters in vibrant, otherworldy oil paintings displayed behind the artist.

Sugintas, who flew in to the United States from Lithuania on Friday, said he prefers the times before the encroachment of technology.

He admires the Renaissance and the early twentieth century, when people still lived in harmony with nature.

“I’m an old fashioned man frightened of the furious development of today,” he said. “I don’t even know how to drive a car.”

He is drawn to images from myths, legends and fairytales, and says he likes that “worlds you make up will become accessible to many people.”

Although he resists modern technology, Sugintas is young. He was born in 1969 in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, when it was at the peak of the Iron Curtain government.

“Like many others, I started painting when I was a child. Unlike others, I did not give it up,” he said.

Though Sugintas graduated from the Academy of Art in Minsk, Lithuania, he sampled many professions before becoming a full-time painter. He believes people can be artists in many different fields because “to be an artist means to have a creative approach to problems.”

He describes his paintings as “a small piece of life frozen on the canvas – a piece of real or made-up life.”

Even though representative art of people is not fashionable now, Sugintas said he decided to paint in that style because it seems most natural for humans to try to capture their appearance exactly.

“Even ancient man in his cave tried to depict them with the help of a piece of coal” he said.

Perhaps for the same reason, Sugintas also practices photography, using very early methods.

After his lecture, Sugintas showed slides of his paintings and explained some of their images.

“I never think about a title before starting,” he said.

He said the time he takes to complete a painting depends on his mood, ranging from two days to two months.

When the lecture was complete, students had a chance to question Sugintas personally, with the help of students who translated his Russian.

The overall reaction of the audience was enthusiastic. Pat Miller, program coordinator for the Committee for Lectures, said she thought it was an “exciting thing to help the student Russian Club bring in somebody with such an unusual perspective” and that Sugintas’ lecture was a “marvelous addition to our series.”