Hi Flaviu! After a little technical break I resumed the tour through workshops and launched the spring collection with you :) Please tell me what are your sources and themes?
Hi Ioana, I am honored and glad you chose me.
My sources of inspiration are life in general. It depends on what I read, whom I spend time with and earlier, it was also very important what music I was listening to. This information traffic: people, concepts, interacting with interesting places or awareness of design, in general, (just a few examples), all of them settle in my mind and at some point, they go out.
I tend to think that they are like a communication channel through which things come out in the form of drawing and painting.
For about two years now, I have been very concerned about entrepreneurship and sound principles of doing business. I do not know how this is reflected in my plastic art, but here is my major intellectual interest right now. I am also concerned about areas of art history. I allow myself the luxury of being completely timeless in the way I study art because I still study it. For example, in the fall of 2019, I was able to deepen my study of Neoclassicism and Romanticism, with the help of the Art Muse painting course. In order not to include Romanticism in my works, I deliver it as a course topic, thus having the opportunity to work on it in another, more indirect, but legitimate way.
What are you working on right now?
Right now I’m promoting the course for the 2020 spring session. I like to load it like a Christmas tree. I have drafted a complex ‘accountability document’ in which I’ve recorded a number of topics for students with which I follow their progress and level of involvement. It’s strange that I behave like an army general, but instead of pushups and running, I give them cultural themes and drawing exercises. Besides the course, there are a lot of things. I write a book, I organize an event through the Plankton gallery, I start a series of new paintings, I prepare the Digital Muse course – graphic design course, I write a series of short workshops commissioned by someone, a lot of design for all this and I sell works + vlogging, which is already part of my life 🙂
Tell me three things you consider essential about art. The good, the bad and the ugly :)
The good: I never get bored of art. I’ve known it for 20 years, and I’m still discovering many drawers and aspects of it. I am interested in the whole field in this ensemble with artists – part of production and aesthetic languages, implementation – galleries, exhibitions scenography, promotion, and lately, the business part of the field. Here, in the last part, smart things are happening that I still do not understand with my present-day intelligence, but if I am interested, that is already a sign that I might understand them at some point.
The bad: I’m sorry that art is still not as desirable as other things. But it will be!
The ugly: There isn’t anything special in my mind.
Do you have an Ars Poetica? What are the values that guide your artistic practice?
In art, I feel like a director who is interested in many visual directions and style figures. I like to consume a lot of and very diverse visuals, I tend to judge the art with the mind of a designer. From here, my trap of being interested only in that part of the art that looks good. And from here, the difficult relationship with the conceptual art. But I’m constantly educating myself.
How do you slide from the color of the painting to the monochrome of the graphic? I see you work hard in both environments :)
Well, the slide is given by the difference in the potential of the materials I work with. One instrument gives you one kind of result, and another instrument gives you another result. If I use a slim 0.4 black liner, there are only a few ways in which I can render light, textures, materials and the result is monochrome. The idea is to succeed in this monochrome to give results that are tasty to the viewer. That is, the image to have those essential elements of photoshop that make it very visible: saturation, contrast, sharpness, clarity, etc. If you do not have color, then it is important to have the ones listed above.
The aesthetics created in my drawings are also inspired by the consumption of black and white photography from the 20th century. There I saw great compositions, but especially from there I became acquainted with what a ‘grayscale image’ means. The more shades of gray in a black and white image, the richer and the tenderer as a visual signal. Then when it comes to color, here I look in all directions: film, design, illustration, nature. Here I do not come naturally. I understand why and how color combinations work and I borrow successful formulas. This is my advice to my students. There are some who feel good about this area to combine colors in a harmonious and trendy way. Harmonious is not always trendy and vice versa.
What is the relationship between the sketch and the finished work in your practice? How much energy do you invest in each of them, and when do you consider a piece of work finished? Which of them do you value the most?
The sketch lasts about 15 seconds, sometimes longer. I write down my idea.
If I add another 9 to 12 hours of valorization, then whatever sketch is below, it becomes a finished piece of work. I feel a work is ready when it has enough ‘meat on the bones’. Look at a harmonious body, neither too weak nor too muscular. This is how I appreciate things, with the valorization, the light, the volume, etc.
But it depends very much on the instrument. Some tools give you that much faster value than a 0.4 liner.
Techniques: stolen, learned, and applied? How important is it for you to master them?
I learned techniques by working alone and following favorite artists. My teachers were kinda missing from school. I learned from the Internet, looking at others as they worked. But most of all, I liked to look at the finished works and realize how certain things are done. ‘Reverse engineering’ they call it. In my intimate arrogance, at one point, I said that there is no work of plastic art, digital or analogous, which, if I look at, I wouldn’t know how it was done, and with a little exercise I could replicate it. Now, I am more measured with this statement, and simply say that I managed to have a broad understanding of how to do it visually.
Tell me 3 artists that you like, motivate and put you to work.
Three of which I think I will never get tired of: Picasso, Stanley Kubrick and Karl Lagerfeld.
How much does your art depend on the location / space you work in?
Yes, the location where I am for a longer period influences my art. I get a lot of information from the environment. If I’m in Cluj, unfortunately I lose my curiosity to look. If I’m in a new city, then, in the first 2 weeks, say, I’m adjusting to the design standard that place offers. I look at fashion, I look at graphic design, I look at the design of objects around me, I see how other products are implemented in the consumer consciousness through advertising, I am interested in copywriting, as well. This is the time when I like to photograph.
If I stay 3 months in a cool place, I start to blend into the landscape and inhale the vibe of that place with all its diversity. After 2 months, when I loaded up and got used to it, the stage where I feel the need to sit down and go out by drawing is following. Then, I withdraw from the public. Hermit mode. In the drawings will appear an African, a sweetheart, the drawing itself will be made to a degree of quality that competes with the standards of the place, and so on. While I was in Paris, I was watching Magritte exhibition during the weekend and during the week I was drawing in the library with free access from the Pompidou Center, and while returning home by subway, I was fascinated by the user experience of the signage in the subway. I also have to mention the advertising posters from the subway stations. You realize that I drew well, compared myself to the hottest, and I was surrounded only by visual quality. We had a high quality benchmark.
There is also a cocktail that gives me strong sensations: the combination of music and location. When I combine these two in a pleasant way, strong sensations result that eventually lead to visuals.
Tell me about an essential / turning point in your development as an artist.
The moment when I was admitted 2nd to the Faculty of Arts in Cluj. That was a super important moment for me. The universe kicked me in the ass, it was what I needed to start thinking that this art work might be possible.
What do you think about the local artistic community, what is your relationship with it?
I like the local artistic community. Everyone strives to do their job as much and as good as possible. And the good thing I started to see is that local artists who were only interested in the West are also starting to exhibit at home. This city needs us and education from us. Only then will we have the public to pay for the ticket or to buy art, other than the classical Romanian art which they have become accustomed to. Some time ago, I was quite tense in the relationship with the artistic community of Cluj. I was seeing myself in competition with everyone. Now my artistic testosterone has been lowered and I embrace them more and more easily, especially those who permit to be embraced. I expect more of them at my events! I’m glad there are some good art galleries! I can hardly wait to beat them because it will be for the good of all! Competition is good. Then, postmortem, I will look from heaven to this period that we live with joy, as a golden age of Romanian art, as has been said about the golden period of Paris in the 20th century. I already see that! But we will have to be more and more in order to achieve this.
How do you relate to the international artistic context?
I have problems here. I watch from a distance, I understand things, but I don’t participate. I did not take the classic route of being represented by a gallery from abroad. Either they didn’t understand me yet, or I didn’t understand them. I have made my own gallery and look forward to conquering the international market with it! I am currently paying rent in Cluj, and that is already a luxury.
How do your works reach "consumers"?
Through the internet and after the exhibitions. I think I’m the most atypical promoter or art seller in the area. Lately I sell via instagram story and vlogs. Earlier I knew a clear-cut thing: if I organized an exhibition, something would definitely sell. And so it was. Now it’s enough to do some postings and things happen. There are some who do not approve of my method. I recently had problems with an old client who criticized me for desacralizing myself by exposing myself on the Internet. I don’t know if he’s right or not, but I like what’s happening to me. I think he was irritated by the fact that I did a sales campaign to buy a washing machine. It took 6 hours to make 1300 lei. I deserved them.
Your workshop also functions as an artist-run studio / workshop in which you hold workshops for different groups of participants, in different environments / artistic languages. Can you tell me more about this project?
Yes. My space is called Plankton Gallery and here I do everything. From exhibitions, my own painting, here is the Plankton drawing archive, here I do painting, drawing and design classes. In the last 2 years, I have developed the Art Muse course, which is the painting course. This course is an experience! I take people through all the essential stages of an artist’s life, ending with the Art Muse exhibition and sometimes even with a sale.
What is the thing you learn from the hours you spend with those who enroll in your courses?
First of all, I am learning to teach:))) I didn’t know the artistic anatomy at a super level before I started teaching it to others. Even now I can’t name all the muscles in the body, but I might know their shape and draw them out of my mind. Then I learned to be patient and I learned to paint in many styles. For example, here at the course, I encourage diversity, and if a student is pleased to reproduce a painting of Cezanne and another one of Vermeer and another one of Modigliani, I must help everyone and thus show them what is the painting technique suitable for each ‘case’. It’s hard to move from Cezanne to Vermeer. You really feel those painters’ mood. For example, when I was painting Cezanne I was very nervous. His work was tormenting me, and I think I was borrowing his temper. So, I am learning to be versatile and I also teach them that this versatility is valuable, especially when you are at the beginning of your career. I teach them to try many styles and techniques.
Ask yourself the question you wanted to answer but you did not receive it! :))
How important is sport in my life? It’s super important!
I have never seriously discussed with anyone in the art world about physical education in relation to painting or drawing. Well, you know, when I draw, there are very often times when I have to hold my breath and I know for sure that having good lungs and that my body is listening me gives me super precision in drawing as well as in the painting. Virtuosity also has to do with physical ability to control things.
And besides, if you play sports you live longer and living longer, you have more time to create and serve the world around you. I think this is a good criterion for being relevant even at an old age.
