Oil and graphite on canvas
“The Illusion of Depth” refers to a paradigm shift occurring during the Renaissance, which presumably generated the most abundant outcome in the whole history of painting by inoculating a decisive mutation in the space representation system. The planar approach gave way to perspective, an illusion based on the laws of optics. Rendering depth on a two-dimensional surface can only be obtained through an absolute subordination of all the elements of composition to a unique measuring scale whose only benchmark is geometry.
Cătălin Petrișor does not set to illustrate a concept, but to offer an alternative meaning to painting, starting from its most rigid structure: the Renaissance principle, tributary to the laws of Euclidean geometry. The novelty of his endeavor resides in his relation to this norm or rather, its truth. By originating his works in a common type of pictorial space - the open cube that unfolds different scenographic backgrounds - he decomposes this endorsed image, in order to offer a raw version of it. Painting ceases to be a means of seduction that delivers a fictional narrative, under the pretense of an often far-fetched reality. It hides, in fact, the essence of an inherent construction whose building up takes knowledge and sincerity. The self-reflexive uncovering, the slicing up through appearances in a visual space built on light, shadow and most of all, on geometry, in the absence of which the illusory sense of depth cannot be sustained, constitutes the subject of the visual survey the artist proposes.
An essay written by Romanian art critic Cătălin Davidescu accompanies the exhibition.
Cătălin Petrişor (b. 1978) is a Romanian artist who works in painting, video, drawing, photography, installation and intervention in public space. He has recently collaborated on the project “How to Mend Unbroken Things”, as artist-in-residence at my art in Vienna. Petrişor was selected among the finalists of the Celeste Prize and was a Strabag ArtAward Nominee. His last solo show was “The Distance Itself” at C-Space Gallery in Beijing. In 2012 he exhibited “Geometry of Human Nature”, a project curated by Maria Rus Bojan at Galerie Dix9 in Paris. In the same year, together with Ana Maria Micu, they presented “A Conscious Choice For Temporary Blindness” at Mind Set Art Center in Taipei.
