Sublinieri : Ortansa Moraru -Aligning with beauty - Varley Art Gallery of Markham
Suggestive title for an Art exhibit, or, I should say, a suggestive
introduction into a world where we intend to enter guided by the necessity
of beauty, and byour desire to sidestep reality.
On Sunday the 23rd of November, the Varley Art Gallery in Unionville hosted
the opening reception of a remarkable collection of art work assembled by
Julie Oakes, Guest Curator, and offered as ³Beauty Benefits² to art lovers.
You don¹t go to view art prepared to understand it. Her irrefutable value,
is primarily emotional, for the language of art is one of transient
communication, therefore a submissive acceptance of our limits would be the
only chances to step in and feel at home.
As Camus once said, ³art is not a solitary fulfillment she has that
potential power to convey a personal happiness into a collective enjoyment
and aligning with beauty is an invitation to steal and take with us some of
this generous offer.²
Ortansa Moraru is one of the remarkable artists included in this exhibit of
subtle and daring translation of life.
Art is a road of discovery, every step is taken is controlled by desire to
find something good enough to keep us searching, good enough to want to go
farther and find that remote way of entrance into that turbulent universe of
emotions, thinking, living. How much the artist hunker after it¹s expressed
in his inner capability to find that ephemeral originality of transforming
earthly materials in to a hieratic bouquet of fillings.
Ortansa uses woodblock prints to inscribe her inner facet. Black and white
ink on Japanese paper being the communicator of her intentions.
What I am going to say from now on, may be an emotional interpretation of
what I¹ve seen trying to align, myself, with beauty.
Based on the dramatic impact black and white combination can produce,
Ortansa_s prints create a string of emotions, for they invade your mind and
soul with inquisitive questions. Titled, NEST (II IV V), they send you to an
idea of primordial of life, but the clarity of such an answer is far away
from the images Ortansa puts in front of you. Black and white color dance
around one another into a frenetic twist, each color fighting to keep its
purity, sometimes successfully, other times losing, and the dye is tinted;
purity of life, right from the beginning, being an illusion.
It is interesting how Ortansa presents her vision: pieces of four or six
rectangular images concurred to set in motion the nest into an up-side-down
pyramid, as the roots propel a germinating life to the surface. And it is
not easy. Wide patches of black fight against some kind of invasion of
white lines, and the impression of distractive tornado invade your mind,
give you goose bumps of fear that from the beginning that life could be in
danger.
A subliminal sense of history is giving the images the power of unorthodox
document, pieces of broken mirrors, shattered by the terrifying forces of
nature or humans, expose a world in turmoil. The colors appear to escape
from the artist¹s control, getting a life on their own, and a secret
language is established between wood and ink, and the artist¹s effort of
curving and printing seems to be secondary.
³Life,² says Ortansa, ³has a path on her own disregarding human effort to
intervene and she, as a begetter has the power to submit herself to follow
this path.² Skillful trick of a master: wood and colors serve her as she
wanted. She wanted a NEST as the convincing image of permanence and, even
more, the force of life. And she got it. No matter the fight, the steps
back, the furry of failures, being alive, celebrating it is triumphant.
Anything else is only a false concept, an unjustified panic. The nest will
be erected and will reign as a cradle of civilization.
I cannot conclude this without reminding you of the pleasure of visiting The
Varley Art Gallery in Unionville, and to give my regards to the organizers
of this event. Their professionalism: the catalog, the presentation of the
artists¹ works, the variety of art exhibit, and the refined and friendly
atmosphere of entire event enchanted me.
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Maria Cecilia Nicu 12/14/2008 |
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