Mirrors

P. 4001

Alexandru Crișan

1978, Bucharest

His artistic portfolio includes, to date, over 200 works in different techniques: pen, ink, oil, charcoal, pastel, etc., realized in a period of over 20 years. Since 2004, Alexandru Crișan has been an assistant professor at the University of Architecture "Ion Mincu" Bucharest and project manager in his own architectural office. Complementary to his profession as an architect, his artistic presence is focused on virtual galleries and limited public appearances.

Exhibition P. 4001

[The pelican in ordinary zoology is a waterfowl, two meters long; its beak is very long and wide, and a reddish membrane hangs below its lower jaw, forming a sort of cage where it keeps its fish; the one in the story is smaller, and its beak is short and pointed. Despite their names, the feathers of the former are white, the latter yellow and sometimes green. But more bizarre than its appearance are its habits. (...) In Leonardo da Vinci's bestiary, the pelican is described as follows: "He loves his chicks dearly and, finding them killed by a snake in their nest, tears their breasts with his claws and bathes them in his own blood, giving them back to life"] [Jorge Luis Borges, The Pelican, The Book of Imaginary Beings]

The exhibition brings together a series of works realized in mixed media in pen, between 2011-2012. The theme of the exhibition follows the evolution of the characters (angels, demons, contorted fragments, etc.) beyond their simple representation. Angels and demons, ambivalent images, prefigure different faces of the same character. Alongside the enigmatic characters are female torsos and representations of anatomical parts in an atypical visual sequence. The repeated, apparently similar appearances are repetitive projections of the dream world situated on an intermediate plane between dream and reality. The hidden face is in context the dilation of the world of the characters, of the increase of their real presence.

With references to allegorical worlds, the titles of the works speak of a first phase in the execution of the subjects, of duality, evolution, transparency and interpretation... Iconic forms and presences mark the experiences we find in the hidden face of things. The original miniature works are based on the idea of later optical enlargements of the final result. The preferred technique is to dilate it into an optical experience of overexposed reality, thus allowing the visualization of chromatic flows and the reaction of the support. The lines behind the drawing tell the "story of the pelican", different from but complementary to the final form of the work. The other face of the subjects becomes through a concrete gesture an animated, timeless presence, marked by the interaction with the fluid element that attenuates the 'perfect state' and transforms the initial image. Water as an intermediary mediates the transposition into the imaginary plane... P.4001.... apparently a color code!

[of ... diphthongs, four or five toes long, the northern lands are abundantly full; they have a curious instinct, eyes like cornelians, hair as black as cornelians, silky and soft, soft as a pillow. They are dead for Chinese ink, and they stand beside the men who are writing, arms folded and foot upon foot, waiting for them to finish, to drink up the remaining ink. Then they sit quietly again on the vine]. [Wang Ta-Hai, 1791, The Monkey Loves Putty, Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings]