Lost Dreams 02 Painting

I am not sure if the title is relevant or not, but I think it underpins my paintings. However, the story is another matter entirely. It all started with the old Casino building in Central Park in Cluj-Napoca. I would pass it by every day, even several times a day, seeing the building at different stages of the day, in all seasons. This was a few years ago, when the deserted place was turning into a ruin, overwhelmed by vegetation; people seemed to have forgotten it. I saw the passersby didn’t even notice it – in fact, I don’t think they saw anything around them; they had a blank look in their eyes. The setting changed every day, the light and the plants looked different each time. In a park, as it is well-known, the succession of seasons is most perceptible, you can see the change of light, of temperature, you can hear the birds sing as soon as spring comes, you can feel the silence and the still whiteness of snow in winter. As days passed, with each glimmer of light or drop of sunshine, that building told me a story – woven of the stories of those who had passed by after me, when the place was probably playing the role it had been designed for. Back then, I started to rebuild a world that may have been there or maybe it was only in my imagination, a world that had dreams, a world of night, a world of day. On these canvases I laid down a piece of that world... another world of the imaginary, of the shadows of those times, a world in which dreams were possible, a world in which dreams died away in the morning – hence the title. Maybe, just like us, those characters have desires, which are above everyday reality, and fears that they could come out, because I think that we were not and are not as open as we like to profess, so as to accept one another. We only accept one another in the limits allowed by society, the moral and religious laws and the laws of the state to which we belong, we adapt to the former and to the current cultural backgrounds. In the middle of a gambling room, people are radiant, dreams seem to come alive, one has the power to do whatever one would like, or to be whoever they want to be, women or men seem more attractive, wine or champagne sparkle like diamonds or gold in their glasses and appear to be winking at you, and all seems sweet and tasty, and as long as you are there “the world is your oyster”. Mirela Ungureanu