Claudiu Presecan

Claudiu Presecan emerges as an Abstract Expressionist at a time when this art movement itself has become just a museum memory for most of us. His works seem to return at the origins of the movement: imbued with freshness, drawing inspiration from basic premises. The artistic pursuit involves the attempt to convey raw emotion through abstract means, a long-term modernist ideal. On a private level, it is probably Presecans attempt to stay emotionally alive in a depressing, uncertain situation, related to the more general uncertainty of Eastern Europe in the difficult process of rebuilding and trying to construct a new political and economic future. The paintings vibrate with new life and fresh emotion and are charged with a sense of possibility becoming reality. Structure is latent in the apparent chaos of the artists handling; it is a metaphor for the structured, disciplined self. Presecans gestural works, in their flowing grace, involve a pictographic look, as well as the awareness of material and primitive communication. His pictorial gestures seem ready to express the apparent inexpressible in primary, vibrant colors. They are on the verge of becoming recognizable signs, but they never become readable, remaining enwrapped in the ...

Born on April 12, 1969 in Cluj-Napoca, a city located deep in the heart of Romania's legendary Transylvania, Claudiu Presecan received his B.F.A. from the Cluj-Napoca High School of Fine Arts in 1987. From there, he pursued graduate studies in painting at the Cluj-Napoca Visual Arts Academy which ultimately lead to his earning a PhD in Fine Arts. Claudiu has been awarded numerous awards and grants for his effervescent images of nature which he renders in oil and acrylic paint (Laz '99 International Art Camp, Laz - jud. Alba; Workshop in arts management: "From Here to There" - The Amsterdam Maastricht Summer University / Soros Foundation Travel Grant; 1997 - 3rd Annual Jurbarkas International Creative Artist Camp (grant), Lithuania; 1996 - Resident Artist, Vermont Studio Center (grant) - Johnson, VT, USA; 1993 - Prize for painting awarded by Academia Internazionale Fanum Fortunae in "Fanum Fortunae e Pisaurum" competition, Fano, Italy). Claudiu's unique, incandescently colored works have been exhibited in Romania, Denmark, South Africa, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada and United States.,