Romeo Moldovan

The cryptic  and provocative "logo" under which Romeo Moldovan, an artist at the start of his career, reveals himself to the audience, descended upon the labyrinth of hopes of the Capital City from Feleacului Hill, where he got his training in the secrets of sculpture. "MAEN" is, therefore, a name-code with resonances of a cultural institution or foundation, which the young sculptor embraced for reasons known only to him. It may happen that over the years this phoneme concentrate illustrate glory and then it will remain in our consciousness as a precious and significant commonplace. Until then, Romeo Moldovan is a promise in whose destiny we believe, because he convinced us that we should believe in him.

The exhibition at the "Orizont" Gallery meets the characteristics of an artistic event at the scale of the generation that this young sculptor represents. What this exhibition has to offer us does not have a way of firing with enthusiasm at a cursory glance. It is more a meditation opportunity on the poetics of the forms this artist is practicing. In a certain way, Maen sculpts for later. But he does it with the tools of a coherent and challenging fine arts syntax. Something spectacular is making its way into the forms imagined by this artist. He draws - and the term does not have to dissuade us, this time - in space by laws that meets completely the possibilities of manifestation and coagulation of matter in the universe. Romeo Moldovan creates with the full sense of materiality and its opportunities for integration into the environment. He does not seek to recreate nature or to embellish it, prerequisites characteristic of the aesthetic doctrines of social and spiritual comfort. Moldovan's modernity is one of substance. If we look closely at the graphical attempts dominating the picture rails of his current exhibition, we observe the unconstraint with which, in the view of this artist, previously consumed tendencies and experiences inosculate in their most conclusive expression - Picasso, Pollack, Raushenberg, Kazar, Lipschitz... According to his own statements, he did not inquiry into such models specifically, his knowledge into the matter  is no match to the artistic output he is trying to prove. An entire creative ontogeny unfolds in the sensible being of this artist, which a remarkable instinct of form drives to performances that are easily remembered.

Maen has the power to convert the flow of contemporary sensibility into a fine art sign, the perfect resonator of which he seems to be. The spatial compositions reinforced with aluminium foil (polished, sanded, smoothened, painted) feature balance, suppleness, formal harmony, expressive force. The works have good presence and are well individualised, most of them, if not all, with an obvious monumental opening. Moldovan imagined these spatial forms with the intent of making them available for the public audience - built, generous enclosures that can be ennobled with distinction, urban markets, industrial ensembles, open countryside sculpture reminders. In drawing up his form, the sculptor has conceived an ingenious succession of fillings and voids in a refined dynamics that allows light and air to work vibratively as an active component of the fine arts construction. It is perhaps the most obvious sign that the sculptor has very well learnt the lessons of his direct masters (among whom Professor Vetro who mentored remarkable arrays of exponents of our contemporary art), and of those who made a name in the field of universal art. The way this artist will evolve in the aesthetic thinking field is harder to anticipate. It is certain that the vigour of his artistic expression recommends him as one of the most endowed representatives of the new generation of sculptors we are blessed with.

What we now know, according to the artist's confessions, is that his fundamental preoccupations are to improve his drawing. But not in the sense that any self-respecting sculptor can do, but to the extent that this skill, this craft can be assumed on a higher level, right down to the performances of the easel graphics. The same penetrating density of the invention of form, the same frenzy of the line developed in random plans and trajectories, seemingly detached from any narrative temptation, to which the artist adds the inspiring influence of his innovative poetics. Outcome can be multiple and salutary, even in the sense that they will decide on a standalone performance concurrently. Moldovan has definite qualities in this respect as well, provided that they are backed by the contribution of a cultivated fine arts thought, to articulate more pregnantly the strong artistic instinct he is endowed with. The colours will thus bend to the artist's will, the line will get rid of the wandering slipping, the composition will become more fluent and more convincing, subject to a guiding idea. For now, in this area, all Moldovan does is to substantiate that its graphic ambitions is nothing more than other projections of the form that utters to be materialised in space.

For us, Maen remains a presence whose voice already possesses the virtues of the song on the brink to coming into existence.

Corneliu Antim