Scara | The Scale, 1995

Ramona Terdic Novicov  –  critic de artă  –  APOSTROF  –  revistă a uniunii scriitorilor, Cluj  –  nr.9(64) 1995:

Repere biografice: născut la 12 aprilie 1969, la Cluj, Claudiu Presecan face parte din generatia de tineri plasticieni aflată în plină afirmare; absolvent al Academiei de Arte Vizuale, 1988-1994; formația sa este complexă, poliorientată (ceramică – pictură), interesată predilect de zona experimentului artistic; lucrare de diplomă susținută în 1994; studii aprofundate (masterat) la Acedemia de Arte Vizuale din Cluj, profesor coordonator Florin Maxa, 1994-1995; competitivitatea la nivel internațional este confirmată de selectarea lucrărilor sale la importante expoziții si de participarea sa, prin concurs, la cursurile de vară ”Master class” organizate de Universitatea din Amsterdam; aici a lucrat cu Jiri Georg Dokoupil, unul dintre cei mai prestigiosi artisti ai avangardei contemporane.

Expoziția deschisă de Claudiu Presecan în saloanele non-conformistului restaurant clujean ”Napoca 15” cuprinde 51 de lucrari. Tînărul pictor și-a gasit identitatea la intersecția unor filoane artistice venite din direcții diferite, dar supuse forței arhetipale a traseului liniar desfășurat ”inteligent” în spațiu. Pictura lui Claudiu Presecan nu este marcată de linearitate, în sens grafic sau decorativ, căci linia sa se încarcă cu voluptatea picturalității. Forța prin care se structurează spatiul este generată de linia colorată puternic plasticizată, medium de fuzionare a energiilor materiei. Pusă fără ostentație sub semn creștin, aventura imaginii sale se consumă deliberat la suprafața suportului pictural, în spatiul virtual dintre realitatea ei materială și privire, după modelul medieval al Răsăritului. Într-un fel care-i este deja propriu, culoarea se transfigurează nu doar evitînd iluzionismul corporalitatii tridimensionale, ci rarefiindu-se în transparențe mate, mediumuri ideale pentru a capta ”lumina cea ne-apropiată”. Prin aceste nuanțări imperceptibile ale gradului de saturație a tentei ni se dezvăluie o sensibilitate plastică de excepție a carei delicatețe este voit ascunsă în spatele spectacolului învolburat și ”crud” al liniilor și culorilor. Cele 51 de lucrări, majoritatea grupate în serii de 7, urmăresc momentele esențiale ale ”Facerii” (”Grădina Raiului”,”Adam si Eva”,”Scara lui Iacob”) sau se centrează pe figura hristică, în special pe ipostaza necanonică din „Isus cu vița de vie”, așa cum apare ea în pictura populară pe sticlă.

Migrarea motivelor din interiorul imaginii pe suprafața ramelor și, virtualmente, dincolo de ele, în infinit, separarea culorii de propriile ei contururi , ca și cînd ar fi umbra colorată a liniei, sunt și acestea elementele inconfundabile ale unui limbaj plastic articulat în forță, dar deosebit de nuanțat la nivelul rostirii interioare. El ne aduce în preajma miraculoasei scări din visul lui Iacob, ca să spunem împreună cu el, cu mirare si bucurie: „Domnul este cu adevarat în locul acesta si eu n-am stiut!”.

Ramona Terdic Novicov  –  Art critic  –   APOSTROF, Literary Magazine  –  Cluj, no.9 (64) 1995:

Biography: born on April 12, 1969 in Cluj-Napoca, he belongs to the generation of young artists in full affirmation; graduated The Academy of Visual Arts, 1988-1994; complex, many-sided formation (ceramics-painting), focussing on the artistic experimentation; graduation diploma obtained in 1994; MA studies between 1994-1995, co-ordinated by Prof. Florin Maxa; his international competitively is confirmed by the selection of his works in several important exhibitions together with his participation at the „master-class” summer courses organised by the A.S.U. and Amsterdam Institute for Painting, where he worked with Jiri Georg Dokoupil, one of the most prestigious artists of the contemporary avant-garde.

Direction of investigation: the zone of interference between the ” natural” and the „cultural” order.

The graduation diploma represented a first moment in the representative configuration of a personal artistic language. Then, in the garden of his house – integrated in the gardens of Cluj, imagining the paradisiac „close garden” after the model of the interlocked magic boxes – took place the meeting between the exultation of the chromatic language articulated in ardent tones, meant to evoke the miracle of the „Genesis” and of the presence of Christ, and the piousness, raised up to impersonal humility, to the masterly execution of the exhibition enclosure, made of shingles after the church or house from the Carpathians Apuseni Mountains (in the heart of Transylvania) – landmarks with biographical connotations.

The programmatic value of this pictorial „installation” is confirmed by the exhibition held in the restaurant „Napoca 15″(June-July 1995), a nonconformist, exemplary model of the total opening towards the world of art and artists. This time, two worlds- Painting and Landscape cease to stay „face to face”, but fuse into a sole, unitary image, seized by the respiration of a single gesture through which it justifies its existence. The liberty of its vision and transposition in a new formula is the result of the suppression of the boundary that should separate, according to the inoperative logic of the common sense, artifice from natural, action from contemplation, instinct from rational intelligence. Out of these antinomies realities, emerges the independent, auto referential plastic Object, the best support of a true sovereign image, without syncope’s or internal breaking; functioning according to its own reality only in the moment in which its cultural charge has become its „second nature”.

A major role in the process of unification of the new images was played by the thorough knowledge of the vision and technique of the folk glass painting. A conclusive example in this respect is offered by the graduation diploma: „The Icons on Glass from Transylvania, XVII Th- XIX Th CTS”. The exceptional expressivity of the image, the conciseness and plasticity of the touch that becomes almost an ideogram, were formed through the plastic language exercises initiated by Dokoupil in Amsterdam under the generic sign ” the intelligence line” (the title of the final exhibition). Thus, Claudiu Presecan’s painting found its identity at the intersection of different artistic trends, but subjected to the archetypal vitality of the linear direction „intelligently” unfolded in space.

However, Presecan’s painting isn’t linear in a graphic or decorative sense. His line is charged with the great delight of painting. The power that organiser the space comes from the coloured line, the medium where the energy of matter and of the Spirit fuse completely. Set, without ostentation, under a Christian sign, the adventure of his image is deliberately consumed on the surface of the pictorial support, within the virtual space between its material reality and sight, after the Mediaeval model of the Orthodox East. In a characteristic way, the colour becomes transfigured, not only by avoiding the illusion of three-dimensional corporeality, but dissipating in flat transparencies, the ideal mediums to collect „the distant light”. Through these imperceptible shades emerges an exceptional artistic sensibility, whose delicacy is willingly hidden behind the tumultuous and „cruel” performance of lines and colours. This unifying coherence, which seldom appears in a fragmentary world, supports the correspondence between theme and technique. The touch is created in a moment, as if it was a revealing writing, marked by the urgency of its faithful communication and is so strong that it overpasses the conventional limit of the frame. Both the expressive touch and the colour bring explicitly into light the mediaeval filiation, underlined also by the chosen themes. The 51 works, the majority grouped in series of 7, follow the essential moments of „The Genesis” („The Garden of Eden”,”Adam and Eve”,”Jacob’s Scale) or are centred on the figure of Christ, especially on the „uncanonical” hypostasis from „Jesus with vine” as it appears in the folk glass painting, but interpreted to the configuration of the power lines only.

The migration of the motives from the interior of the image to the frame and, virtually, to the infinite, the separation of colour from its own contours as if it was the coloured shadow of the line are distinctive elements of a powerful artistic language anchored in the interior existence. It brings us close to the miraculous scale from Jacob’s dream, to say with him with wonder and joy: „God is truly in this place and I didn’t know it!”