Dan MĂCIUCĂ: Spots of Reality Hidden Under the Gray Lens

Making his debut showing in Taiwan, Romanian artist Dan MĂCIUCĂ presents  “Spots of Reality Hidden Under the Gray Lens” which consists of his latest sketchings and paintings. His works portray a figurative world seen through his abstract lens. The subjects range from distant landscapes to daily scenes. Măciucă has recreated a vivid world of his own with intertwining lines and dynamic structures. The “Gray Lens” in the title represents the process through which the artists manipulate and filter his images. The show title itself is from Hermann Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”, a novel that reflects on the psychological crisis that the author had experienced in the 1920’s. At one point in the book, the main character Harry Haller is reprimanded by his musician friend Pablo, “you (are)[...] spattering our pretty picture-world with the mud of reality.” According to Măciucă, the “mud of reality” can also be interpreted through the pictorial language itself, in which the stain becomes volume, space and finally, reality. Măciucă has drawn with charcoal sticks, erased the traces, and drawn again to add an oil painting-like quality to his drawing. The energetic pencil strokes create air, light and shadow that rest on paper. In “Forest”, one of his standouts, the artist took inspiration from the movement of trees and branches which reminds him of Jackson Pollock’s plastic dry-painting effect. His other standout work, “Shore”, features sharp geometrical lines borders that connect the rocks and water, which recall Mark Rothko’s pictorial surfaces.