Cecilia Menilescu: The Seas of my Soul, by Roberta Nagy, Ist year ITA

"The Seas of My Soul”, is a personal exhibition by the artist Cecilia Melinescu held open at The Museum of Art of Cluj-Napoca, 3-15 April,  Wednesday to Sunday inclusive, from 10 am to 5 pm. Cecilia is a journalist and producer at TVR but she is also a painter who confessed that she studied Turner a lot. Through this exhibition the artist presents  the public with a series of works that combine not only the theme of the tumultuous seas but also their diverse and colourful world. The existence of a balance between the brutal waves and their beauty brings not only a sense of depth but also a picture of a world of contrasts. The sea, the living monster always on the move, is represented by the artist in various situations, where emphasis is often placed not only on mechanics and dynamics, but also on a colour dimension.

We see in these works a special attention to the detail - generically speaking, a watermarking of great finesse and sensitivity. The waves seem not to crack, but to adorn the sand with a lace of  foam. Beyond the visual impact of the image, reaching the shores is a conquest, a victory, a tumultuous passage to a quiet,  deserved peace. Many of the works depict the beach ands the sand - a sand that burns and cools, and hugs the waves in a "welcome home" greeting. There is a detail that inevitably draws attention not only through the chromatics but also  through the message and the state that it creates: the sky. It is often a dark sky, a sky that either bears  the signs of the storm, inspiring anxiety, or induce a state of prostration at sunrise; the sky  is the beginning and the end, and the omega, defined by the artist through a conglomeration of clouds that do not seem threatening but free the sky  only in slits, large enough to leave the light  triumph and, in combination with it, suggesting  hope and positivism. Besides, the artist herself defines her works as an "invitation to meaning", so the viewer is welcomed to build his/her own.