Dragos Badita and Dan Maciuca at the Paintbrushes Factory

Two shows were opened at the Paintbrush Factory on April, the 27th, one at Lateral art space and the other one at Bazis gallery, and, while both young men exhibiting are MA graduates of the painting department of the University of Art and Design in Cluj, their interests, endeavors, and personalities are ever so different, thus making for two very different experiences during the course of one visit.

The Lateral art space is the “new kid on the block” when it comes to the Paintbrush Factory, the artist run space being an independent platform for contemporary art founded by Andreea Ciobica, Dragos Badita, Cristina Curcan, and Lucian Indrei as a place open to collaboration and experimentation. I personally find the initiative quite adventurous and yet necessary, taking into consideration the unfortunate demise of several of the Paintbrush Factory’s spaces. Not to mention that the practice behind an artist-run space always creates a slightly looser atmosphere than a generated by the actions of a gallery and that is a nice thing to see on the art scene.

The inauguration show was of one of its own founders, namely Dragos Badita. The young artist’s main focus is painting, but he used this exhibition to showcase some more experimental work alongside two self-portraits in this normally medium of choice for him. My Body Is Always Here is a show that features the artist’s body, the human body from both a self-referential and a more intimate point of view. It’s by no means just a series of self-portraits, as it also exploits the body as the object that is ever so close, something we can shake off or leave behind, it really is always there, whether we love it or hate it, so we might as well just try to get to know it better.

The show proposes the following: despite our body being our closest and most intimate companion, we seem to take it for granted and we don’t show terrible interest in its means. We drag it along and notice it when it brings us pain, or when it stops us from reaching certain goals. And so the artist tries different means through which to better get acquainted with his own body and its relationship to the world. In this respect, the show contains two self-portraits (head and naked torso) in oil on panel, in which the primary focus is placed upon the nuances of the flesh, skillfully rendered, and set against a brilliant and rather unnatural shade of blue that makes the twisted nudes pop out, vulnerable and alone. With the beautiful use of color these two works bear the mark of an artist who is comfortable and confident about his craftsmanship.

Another part of the exhibition is a series of 9 ink drawings on paper, one containing an explanation, presenting the left hand of the artist sketched during train rides, alongside comments on the environment, or whatever else caught his eye while drawing. These are meant to show us the ever present and available study material that is the left hand. Complex and substantial, always available for a quick sketch so that you can get your (right) hand to practice, anyplace, anytime. The whimsical handwritten comments on the surroundings add charm and give insight into a curious if only slightly bored mind – the fur that caresses a neck, the mole in the cleavage, kids playing outside the window… Random bits of nothingness, they describe a picture made out of probably unessential details that are though rendered important simply because they somehow stuck with you, which, after all, is all that matters.

A long series of bizarre and mysteriously looking prints were displayed on the opposite wall. On a closer inspection, you recognize them as images taken during a medical ultrasound examination of various parts of the body, from “head to toe”. Tens of them, black and white, abstract shapes that might as well be alien… except they are not, they are all too human. The exploration of the body and the invasion of the personal space are taken here to a whole new level.

The show also contained a video piece of roughly one minute long, which I personally found to be particularly good, Heartbeat. An explanatory photograph set up next to the projector shows the artist lying on his back with a camcorder attached to his bare chest. The camera is filming a white wall at full zoom, so that the motion provoked by the beating heart is even greater. The very abstract image, coupled with the movement reminded me for a moment of something you see through a microscope in the seconds you are setting up your lens… shifting in and out of focus. The steady thump and the rhythm fill the room, and you feel as if you are pressed against somebody’s chest for a while, but it’s the cathartic inhaling at the end that really makes the piece. It’s the first time you are fully hit by the previously existing tension that the rhythm was unconsciously imposing. An exercise in breathing, or rather holding one’s breathe in order not to interfere with the movement caused by the heart, I found this video to be both fascinating and endearing.

My Body Is Always Here made for and excellent first show for Lateral and I am sincerely looking forward to their next, wishing them the best of luck. And as for Dragos Badita, although proving to be an excellent painter once again, I found it refreshing that he maybe stepped out of his comfort zone with a nice combination of experiments that were set up in such a clever manner.

The show hosted by Bazis, Dan Maciuca’s Nothing to Hide, brings forth, like I already mentioned, another painter who also on this occasion decided to step away from his familiar medium and tackle his old interests in the form of collages, sculptures, and also video.

Dan Măciucă is well known for his wild, spontaneous canvases, on which thickly applied paint still gives proof of a well-thought chromatic arrangement and composition. The surfaces of his works are rough and textured, and already close to reliefs; his interest in all things having to do with matter: its structure, texture, and ultimately volume, inevitably brought him to outgrow the bi-dimensional plane of traditional painting. In the works shown at Bazis, the artist decided to go even further into translating his paintings to 3D objects, and the result is nothing short of spectacular.

In taking up his older themes and quests and rephrasing them in different media he (literally) adds a new dimension to them, thus they don’t seem to be dull or passé, instead they become more interesting and complex, posing new problems. This just goes to show that digging ever deeper into the same old questions isn’t necessarily something bad, as long as you manage to find surprising and intriguing new answers, this being precisely what is happening here!

The objects used in the collages / sculptures are mainly found and repurposed items such as (plastic) bottles, industrial scraps, pieces of glass and wood, different materials with as many different textures as possible. This offers a new life, meaning, and function to these objects after they have been cast off as useless. The jagged edges offer a raw finish and the colors, although quite similar to the artist’s usual pallet are no longer obtained through physical combination of pigments, but rather found such as they are and then juxtaposed. Another element is the use of commercial magazines, which are found in over abundance all around us and to which we don’t exactly pay attention; here they have taken on other shapes, they’ve become strange landscapes: peaks, valleys, and caves that capture the eye despite their apparent mess.

The show contains three pieces created more or less in this same manner, my favorite of which is the first one on the right-hand side. Its value comes from the fact that it is just perfectly clear in getting the artist’s message across to the viewer, and also I especially liked the uncluttered and very well balanced composition. The work next to it is much more three – dimensional, using bent pipes and wires, while the composition that used various plastic bottles was clear in its simplicity and chromatically exciting. What I found to be an excellent invention for the entire show was the way these three pieces were illuminated. The light-bulb at the end of a tube that is built in the work and hangs above it like some sort of fishing pole creates an amazing lighting for each piece and the entire atmosphere of the show becomes incredibly elegant because of this. Any other lights are turned off, except for the video projector, and the gray walls of the gallery really work to an advantage. The washing machine door, stuck to the wall, has the appearance of a round window that shows you what’s on the other side of the wall. The jumble of clothes inside make for a piece that initially makes you smile, but as you look at the clutter pressed against the glass you cannot help but reference Arman’s Le Plein, albeit a miniature version of it.

A piece that stands out in the show is the world created and contained in what used to be a wooden chest of drawers (by my best guess), now torn open, illuminated from the inside, which it is mainly an excuse to play with as many textures and materials as possible, the shards of glass, the clumps of wool, the leftovers, and so on. It’s a game of differences, but one who’s power I’m afraid was not fully developed, especially since I find it to be somewhat disconnected from the other displayed works.

The video on the other hand is spot on, a journey through a strange land with bizarre geography seen between the flashes of the strobe light. The messy artist studio that is actually presented, the glimpse into what looks like a hoarder’s collection, all rendered much more serious and even slightly disturbing by the addition of the unsettling background noise and the aforementioned usage of the strobe light. This experiment had a really great outcome, with the particular textures, the trickling water aspect, the constant feeling of apprehension you get, as if you are exploring something you should not be seeing. The artist has nothing to hide, even if it’s not the prettiest sight to behold.

With these well constructed experiments, Dan Maciuca proves that he can very well rise above what is expected of him, all the while sticking closely to the path set up by his obsessions. His paradoxically elegant show, along with  Badita’s were two of the best shows I have seen at the Paintbrush Factory for what seemed to be quite a long time. Hopefully their frequency will once again pick up.                                                                                                                                                                                                      Text by Voica Puscasiu