By Antonio La Cava
Children portraits: smiling faintly, intense stares that reveal the astonishment and the innocence typical of childhood. Just entering the hall where the works by Mariana Gordan are on show, at the Rumanian Cultural Institute, the exhibited sculptures portraying the faces of children from Rivello, a small town of the Basilicata’s hinterland, reveal the whole extraordinary expressiveness that all kids have.
Mariana Gordan is a Rumanian artist, a woman used to travel, that expresses her art via portraits, through drawing, painting, sculpture, photography and multimedia. “Portraits: this is what I do. It is my way of seeing, of listening and of understanding what is around me. It is my way of immortalising people I have met; it is like carving my own life in stone”.
The exhibition is an installation of polychrome sculptures, part of which has been recently shown at the Iorga Institute in Venice.
“By using different materials like bronze, terracotta, plaster or resin, one can see how the same sculpture changes expression from one medium to another”. The portraits are produced “to capture the spirit behind the face”. “If you can see the details and read between lines you will be able to decipher the Truth: the truth in a person or in a work of art. My main concern in art is exactly that: to achieve both subtlety and clarity – this is why the human face is the most challenging means of expression for me. It is my universe”.
On the opening evening of the exhibition a video by Mariana Gordan was screened, named Disorient Express. On that, the Rumanian artist expressed her regret about the warped vision of freedom that western culture gives through its values and told her story as a Rumanian artist, who had left her country escaping from dictatorship: “Britain literally saved my life, when I was offered haven here, in 1979. I was welcomed and celebrated hero style for my courageous escape from Ceausescu’s Romania”.
Mariana Gordan has been living in England since 1979 and she has produced works in America, Japan, Italy, France and Portugal over the years, as well as Romania.
Mariana Gordan has a strong bond with Italy: since 1980 she has been going every year to Rivello for her August holidays. “Italy – Mariana says – is the only place in the world where I drink real coffee. Italian people are very interactive and make it easier to communicate through my work rather than verbal language. I also think Italy is the most beautiful country in the world and the Italians have beauty in their genetic make-up”.
The photos of the exhibition are available on our website www.giorgiostudio.co.uk.
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