Artbeat
Costel Iarca: a new dimension in abstract expression
By: Julia Ann Charpentier
Julia Ann Charpentier writes on the growing reputation and exciting work of expat Romanian painter Costel Iarca
Posted: 02/06/2009
Untitled 7, by Costel Iarca
In postmodern art, a significant degree of originality may be impossible to achieve. Cynics say it's all been done before. The gifted few will conceive on a broader scale and make art history, falling into the ranks of Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Jackson Pollock.
Romanian artist Costel Iarca captured attention on the international art scene for a patented application technique that leaves the canvas textured and three-dimensional. This procedure involves layering latex caulk and acrylic paint, giving depth and definition to the surface of his unique abstract and figurative paintings. This method is not only his signature style, but his ticket into the realm of the innovators.
Iarca emigrated to the US in 1994. He's operated several galleries throughout Chicago in the last ten years, the most recent on Michigan Avenue. His paintings have been featured at the Agora Gallery and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. A recent exhibition at the MacNider Art Museum in Mason City, Iowa, showcased the best of his work.
A post-Cubist Picasso influence is still present, but Iarca's trademark style overrides his predecessors. He cherishes the opportunity to live up to his creative potential more than the average American. Warm, yet somewhat enigmatic, he defines art as "human magic". He compares every painting to a poem, a symphony, or a prayer and believes art is a manifestation of the soul.
Iarca has a unique perspective on art. No "bottom line". He believes a painting is always incomplete. Just as people go through constant transformation in life, he will modify his canvases until he is satisfied. Perfection and imperfection are essential aspects of the world, contradictory elements that he reflects on and channels into his work.
Born in Valea, Romania, in 1963, Iarca received his BA at the School of Popular Art in Tirgoviste in 1982 and went on to study theology, intending to enter the priesthood. Instead of the Orthodox Church, the studio became his place of communion and fulfillment. Aspects of religion and philosophy enhance his creations, but his free spirit dominates his work.
Historians typically place abstract art into two categories-geometric and intuitive. Iarca paints with emotion. "You take something from the inside, and then you see the new elements." The creative process involves adding and constantly changing what has been applied to the canvas. What appears beautiful one day may appear ugly the next. "When I painted the first time, I changed it, and I changed it, and then I changed it like twenty-five times based on my moods, my emotions," Iarca remarks with amusement. "I still leave some elements when I impose elements in a painting."
Untitled 5, by Costel Iarca
In an abstract work composed of color and gestural movement he integrates figural and visual depictions, not just what is inside. A casual observer may assume that figurative work requires more technical skill and time, but Iarca does not agree. He states that the movement of the brush, the addition of color, and the application of as many as twenty layers on one painting involves labour. He takes a natural shape from nature and gives its impression only in the conceptual sense.
He studied Cubism and Surrealism, and though both schools of art have impacted his career, he emphasises the surrealist aspects of his work, which emerge from the subconscious, where some hidden image always remains. Initially, he immersed himself in the classical world and believed that the ability to emulate the masters was a big deal. Then he fell in love with abstract expressionism-a lifelong passion.
"So many people say, 'Oh, I can do that.' It's a big, bad lie." Iarca explains that an abstract painting uses a larger palette. "It takes not ten times, a hundred times more colour. In a classical work you control everything, the colour, the movement. In abstract you control, but you cannot control everything."
A classical piece is an emulation of what is seen, but an abstract creation is a process of interpretation and change. When discussing older traditions in art, he veers toward the romantic. Many abstract painters apply the psychology of Carl Jung to their work, but Iarca shies away from talking about what he classifies as nonsense. Jung believed in a collective unconscious, a realm of the human mind that remains hidden, a secret inner place from which symbols and images emerge. Iarca admits he uses a secret symbolism.
"I try to combine science with the eye of God," he says. "If you look at my paintings, I like to work with odd numbers. I use symbols from chemistry, from literature, from music, sometimes, like notes."
When confronted with words like balance and unity, terms subject to a vast range of definitions, he comments, "Balance. Either you are good or bad. Either you are cold or hot. It's a nice term to accommodate our society-to be balanced."
Some early abstract expressionists believed that art is not censored, not rational, and not even conscious. Iarca does not see eye-to-eye with his predecessors. "You have to think what to create," he explains. "That dripping … maybe you cannot control, but when you throw a splash, you throw it with a purpose, so you put the mind to work. Why shall I throw it there? You might throw it, and it doesn't go in the right place. Then you have to change it."
Though abstraction sometimes conveys unintended messages, he stresses the necessity to think, to examine what happened on the canvas by accident, and then to take this occurrence to a different level using a rational process.
"Sometimes you see things that you never intended to see," he adds. "Sometimes it's magic. It appears there."
Modernism is associated with freethinking, but postmodernism is often a conformist reaction to open-minded perceptions. Iarca's art is a unique mixture of ideals implemented in a liberal medium. He refrains from keeping a concept conservative and tries to create an insightful combination in his work. Religion may be a reaction to modernist expression, but integration of opposing viewpoints is the key.
"I never use my liberty against God," he states. "Liberty is the liberty of the soul. You are free to choose. There are lots of things in society to choose, so you choose that freedom." Those who think an abstract painting is not religious don't understand the spiritual aspect of expressionism. "They don't know the colour of the soul, the colour of the spirit. We know each other because of how we look, because we look in the mirror. We see our features, but men never try to look inside."
He describes the soul as colour, energy, movement, and beauty. "In one day to be happy, in one day to be bad. One day when you go outside, you see a beautiful landscape. The soul vibrates. So that energy, you feel it, but you never see it. It's very hard to see what is inside of you. You'll know what colour, what is the energy of your soul in that moment."
Iarca prefers that others interpret his work, and he does not come across with a religious or a political statement. He knows that people think whatever they want, and objective observers will find it difficult to predict what he feels. No matter how he expresses an emotion, a spectator cannot experience what he does.
"The spirit is everything, all the language in the world, a tremendous knowledge about science, chemistry, so I'm limited here," Iarca concludes. "Religion - it's another part of freedom, so you cannot force somebody to love religion. There is nothing in the world like love because love doesn't condemn. Love doesn't do bad things. If you love a person, always you look towards just good things all the time."
Beneath the mystifying flecks of colour on the hands of this gentle Romanian man is an artist who will grace the walls of museums for future generations. A lover of life.
An exhibition of Costel Iarca's work is at the Andrews Art Museum in North Carolina until 30 June, 2009. For more information about the artist, please visit his website at: www.iarcagallery.com
Comments:
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Monday 05th October 2009 at 20:10 Gabriele Rico said: "Iarca is one of the finest, most driven experimentalists I have ever met. Making art is his passion, and one gets sucked into his swirl of color and shape--and joy. He is an exceptional artist." | |