Bucharest

Bucharest

Black II. 2011. oil on canvas. 221 x 382 cm
Black I. 2011. oil on canvas. 225 x 402cm
Black III. 2011. oil on canvas. 222 x 327cm
Black III (Block of Flats). 2011. roasted iron sheet. 14- x 240 x 47 cm
Elvilla. 2011. oil on canvas and iron sheet. 106 x 156 x 18 cm
Aro - War Makes Museums. 2011. oil on canvas and iron sheet. 115 x 148 x 11 cm
The Stairs. 2013. oil on canvas. 169 x 212 cm
Burnt Room/ 2013/ oil on canvas/ 205 x 324 cm
Old Neighbourhood in Bucharest. 2015. oil on canvas. 135 x 135 cm
Vacaresti. 2000. oil on canvas. 120 x 120 cm
Sara l'Apocalisse un Capolavoro? 2004. oil on canvas. 146 x 196 cm
Cotroceni. 2003. oil on canvas. 50 x 70 cm
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In comparison with Rome, Bucharest stands defeated. Rome’s triumph over Bucharest was a deliberate project, showing my desolation. Leaving Rome against my will caused me a trauma that still follows me today. Although deeply marked by the communist era, the hometown from my paintings refuses the political theme. I am interested by the destroyed houses and how they ruined also the people that lived them and by the spiritual deformation.

 

My landscapes describes a recent history of the city throughout a return to my childhood neighbourhood, a return to the blocks where I lived at a time where my early age could not facilitate the understanding of the life and it’s context. The street populated by trams and heavy vehicles, the park, the cemetery and my block all adjoined into a inseparable triangle. The 1977’s earthquake, when my father holding me in his arms fall down the stairs, trying to save me. Children playing  among the reinforced concrete structures of the blocks under construction, the National Stadium and Ceausescu’s visit on my street. All these had to be mentioned in my epic landscapes that I have stared working on in 2010.

 

On a large horizontal canvas, seen from a “bird’s eye view” the communist blocks merged into a black combustion, a general bad feeling encompassed the representation.

 

The black dominant of my paintings comes from the archive documents that mostly are in black and white, from the archaic representation of plans and projects, but are also drawn from the colour of the asphalt.

 

Black are also the paintings that cultivate the mystery and those representing the dark side of life, Rembrandt versus Goya, the flickering light in the dark and the evil from the wars.