“The Pelican of ordinary zoology is an aquatic fowl approximately six feet tall with a long, broad beak from whose lower jaw there hangs a reddish membrane forming a sort of sack or basket for holding fish; the Pelican of fable is smaller, and its beak is short and sharp. Faithful to its name, the plumage of the first is white; the feathers of the second are yellow, or sometimes green. Even more striking than its appearance are its habits. (…) Leonardo da Vinci’s bestiary defines the Pelican in the following way: This bears a great love to its young, and if it finds them slain in the nest by a serpent it pierces itself to the heart in their presence, and by bathing them with a shower of blood it restores them to life.” [Jorge Luis Borges, The Pelican, The Book of Imaginary Beings]

The exhibition integrates a series of mixed technique nib paintings executed in 2011 and 2012. It thematically follows the evolution of certain “characters”, such as angels, demons and contorted fragments, beyond their basic representation. Angels and demons, ambivalent images – they all prefigure different facets of the same “character”. Alongside such enigmatic “characters”, the exhibition contemplates feminine torsos and representations of anatomical details in an atypical visual succession. Recurrent “presences”, similar at a first glance, are the foundation for repetitive projections of the oneiric world placed in a limbo, between dream and reality. Contextually, the hidden facet rests within the magnification of the world of the referents and the accrual of their “real” presence. Incorporating explicit references to allegorical worlds, the titles of the paintings evoke early drafts of execution, duality, evolution, transparency and interpretation. The iconic shapes and “presences” betoken experiences that are to be found in the latent facets of things.

The concept behind the miniature original works is rooted on the idea of a subsequent optical aggrandizement of the final painting. The preferred technique seeks the dilatability of the painting in an optical experience of overexposed reality, thus allowing the visualization of chromatic oozing and the reactive behavior of the paper. The lines that substantiate the drawing tell “the story of the pelican”, a narration which turns out to be different from, but complementary to the definitive version of the painting. The other facet of the motifs becomes, by virtue of a search for the material, an animated, atemporal presence, scared by its interaction with the fluid element which attenuates “the state of grace” and consequently alters the initial imagery. Water, as an intermediary agent, facilitates the transposition towards the imaginary. P. 4001… apparently… a color code!

p.4001 / alexandru crisan

art exhibition

exhibition: 17 February – 19 March 2012 / Readers

opening hours: Monday – Saturday 9.00am – 11.00 pm

February 17 , 2012, 7.00pm

“This animal, common in the north, is four or five inches long; its eyes are scarlet and its fur is jet black, silky, and soft as a pillow. It is marked by a curious instinct — the taste for India ink. When a person sits down to write, the monkey squats cross-legged nearby with one forepaw folded over the other, waiting until the task is over. Then it drinks what is left of the ink, and afterward sits back on its haunches, quiet and satisfied.” [WANG TAI-HAI, 1791]

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https://alexandru-crisan.com/national-exhibition-p-4001-bucharest-ro/.

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