Recent work by Radu Pulbere, By Alexandra Burtiuc

Radu Pulbere is a painter born in Cluj in 1963, who studied at the Art Academy of Cluj-Napoca in 1982-1986. Now he lives in Cluj-Napoca and he is a professor at the University of Art and Design. Is one of the artists who had numerous private and group exhibitions since he graduated.

The most recent exhibition, that was held at the Art Museum of Cluj-Napoca, was called Wanderings of the Body. The opening was on 25 February 2016 and it lasted until 13 March 2016. The exhibited paintings were from the last two years of work, put together under a concept: the ideas/concepts that have a certain body. Ideas/concepts like loneliness, memories, distance, what every and each of us see, are represented by some certain and specific thing. They can be people, landscapes, objects, animals, and so on. It depends on the viewer what he sees when he looks at a painting. It depends on his perspective, on his vocabulary, on his visual intelligence, even on his eyes – optically speaking. Each person who looks at a painting can see something different. But what the artist was trying to say through his exhibition and through his art is that every idea has a body actually. And we associate the idea with something physical.

The paintings are done in vivid, saturated and very contrasting colors. And this is one of his particularities, and I find them very refreshing. The predominant colors that he uses are dark blue, violet, green and their combinations. To contrast with these color he uses light colors like light blue, white, red and pink, and turquoise.

There is something about the colors that fascinated me, like they have their own lives, probably because colors have priority compared to drawings. The works that impressed me were The Swimmer 1 and 2 and the landscapes with waves. He painted such difficult themes in such a unique way. The waves reminded me of the Japanese paintings and the women swimming underwater were absolutely astonishing.

I really like this exhibition and I am looking forward to the next one. I am sure that he will bring something new and refreshing like he did with this one.

The sources:

1. Article made by Aurel Codoban http://www.modernism.ro/2016/02/22/radu-pulbere-ratacirile-trupului-muzeul-de-arta-cluj-napoca/

2. The official page of the artist http://www.radupulbere.ro/index.html