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„CULTURA”
(Nr.
9/9-15 Mar 2005)
Who is Gheorghe Fikl ?
 An
artist from Timisoara, graduate of West University Timisoara, Painting
department (after a couple of years at Art University in Cluj, before
the department was established in Timisoara), Fikl exhibits until
the 13th of March "Bulls and Chandeliers" in Bucharest,
at the "Posibila" Galery (nr 6, Popa Petre str.)
Suggestions of piety on angels faces, carnal, sexual and violent
torments, associations of bulls and curtains, of ripped calves hanging
from the vaults of some San Pietro, a sheep with placid expression
watched over by angels, chandeliers and photographic effects, horse
fur used as canvas and grand dimensions, 2 by 2,85 m.
The gallery welcomes you warmly, with colored walls, with Fikl.
I resist the urge of looking for a meaning or interpretation, of
breaking the visual expression with my own speculations and just
start a conversation with the artist.
I've been a painter ever since childhood, School of arts, Mathematics
and Physics high-school, exams and years spent in college. The only
thing left from the recollection of the early experiences of this
man, is the way he realizes, more and more, the path towards he
is heading, his belonging to a sort of expression. My first work
was the work-shop. I covered everything in fur, leather, I brought
red velvet drapes, old chandeliers.
Ever since then, fur becomes a quest - different sorts of fur, of
different sizes, in a certain speculation of the theme. As it is
not the texture, nonetheless the complex of symbols that I have
been trying to find motivates the election of such a support. Beyond
the "psychologists who could explain any of these", Fikl
reports each of his intentions, including the election of the support,
at the theme he identifies with the rhythm of the entire creative
gesture, found in each work, the red thread offering providing cohesion
to a certain substance, as to the whole as well. As in music! Nevertheless,
music is part of his speech whenever he mentions painting. Music
and theatre, as a medley, in the exact formula of the making of
a new world I believe all these are directed towards the theme,
the world I am creating. Everything is just scene painting. A bullterrier
related to angels-there one can find a theme. One cannot find surrealism
just by placing the cart in front of the horse. I relate to this
word, as to a first certain lever and I already feel that I am entering
a stable ground. the logics of these definitions is quite soothing
and the recipe is soon born: there are common features, myths and
symbols. From here, it is easy to provide connections to all the
things you are familiar with. The starting point consumes itself
almost instantly. I cannot say that I ma a surrealist. I have not
consumed it all yet, I have not exhausted the theme. He is right
after all: things cannot be that simple after all, it has to be
more uncanny, more incentive. I realize that I am starting to use
his own words.
In his case, the story is unique, and that he states with persuasion.
If other situations grant you with the possibility of building your
own stories, by facing his works, you are consumed with the idea
that you should find that certain idea, the only one actually making
sense to the entire assembly. You start with the hand-made poster
at the entrance, then you continue with the gray chamber, you finally
get to the large scale works from the red chamber (it seams like
it had been purposefully chosen to be red, according to the works
displayed there) and after all, you get back to the green chamber
at the Purple Bull and the Bull-terrier with chandelier that lead
to the actual comprehension of the fact that not the large scale
dimensions or the experience of all the types of support actually
impress you, but the knowledge of directing some compositions, the
scene painting of the associating elements. I am choosing the elements,
I take pictures of them and I assemble them on the computer. All
the sketches are there computer-made. When the product reaches the
canvas, the image is completely changed, while the composition,
the associations, the tensions- I see them all on the digital support.
I am making my research from a series of a hundred turkeys, the
turkey I am making turns out to be insignificant, but intensively
searched. It is just like music, you write your score and after
words you must learn to play it, to live that moment. - And this
is for you the moment of canvas? "It certainly is. And as I
reach the canvas, I leave aside the stiff elements of photography
and I start painting. The chandelier from "Horse and Chandelier"
is (in the photo), a crystal chandelier, meticulously executed.
Still, after painting those "cogs", I couldn't leave it
like that, I had to play with the rhythm of the entire work.
Gheorghe Fikl is a new artist at the "Posibila" gallery
and among other exhibitions in Bucharest. A specific technique,
coming from another zone and another artistic dynamics. Fikl seams
like an exotic character-mystery and surrealism. After all, we have
come across an individual with a lot to say, and the best way he
can express it is on the canvas, endowed with the necessary power
of visual expression, and with the boldness of the outcast.
Cosmina MATEI
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