Mihai Paul
LandE scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW place, nurturing the feeling of belonging to someting bigger and grander than ourselves – including te suffering we put ourselves through. All these reflections overtake the soul in the mysterious darkness of the night, hence the name of it.
In the end both render the beauty the world we live in has, the question if its imaginary or real loosing sense.
You have once remarked in your artist ' s statement that you believe that everything that one creates has a deeper meaning strongly connected with our inner self: when we look at Primordial life and Serpent of light we are struck by the atmosphere suggested by the darkness that saturates the canvass. Is this a reflection of you? Can you describe to me how this darkness that appears in your work connects to you personally?
I do believe that, more strogly now than ever before. It is quite impossible to render or create something without it being personal and a reflection of what we feel and think in regards to the subject, because by our nature we are a subjective creature; we have our system of beliefs, moral guidelines, fears, likes and dislikes that determine how we approach everything we do.
One of the favourite subjects that I treat and think about, is the darkness that lingers within me. Because I think that if I get to understand and acccept that darkness, it will lose any power it might have, enabling me to enjoy more fully everything that comes in life, good or bad – again, because there is no darkness, i. e.“ bad things”, to fear anymore.“ Primordial life” is the perfect image of where I was before I allowed love to enter my being, to be more precise to surface from within. It is actually the beggining of a project called“ A present of love” in the lines of a story that is represented in pictures also; like a comic book with paintings if you like. Here you can access the plot of the story, the painting finding its place easily in it. There are other titles that are part of the narative, namely“ A song of spells”,“ Vivid dream”,“ Together”,“ From beyond”,“ Inner light” and some.
A representative quote for my fascination with darkness is that of Carl Jung in which he beautifully states that“ the sole purpose ofhuman existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” This, mixed with a trip to Iceland I had to view the Northern Lights, gave birth to“ Serpent of light”, representing the journey man has in the form of his life, through the eternal darkness of existence.
When showing clear references to perceptual reality, your paintings convey a captivating abstract feeling that provide with dynamism the representative feature of your canvass, as Lost soul. The way you to capture non-sharpness with an universal kind of language quality marks out a considerable part of your production, that are in a certain sense representative of the relationship between emotion and memory. How would you define the relationship between abstraction and representation in your practice? In particular, how does representation and a tendency towards abstraction find their balance in your work?
Because of our subjective view, everything has a meaning to us, therefore nothing is just representative for and by itself. This is how so many arguments arrise among people: everybody has their own opinion about things and ideas. Even if it is the cause of so much misfortune in the world and our lives, it can also be the fountain of wonder and novelty, because everything is a mystery awaiting discovery. There is this wall of perceptions that arrises between the world and ourselves; we turn to solitary confinement in our high tower, barelly letting light and wind come through. This idea I tried to express in“ Resolution” – our
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