22. Fantastic Animal [1982]

The utopian universe often found in Sabin Bălașa's canvases, which the artist explores from his childhood years, reiterates his fascination with the unknown and the infinite. His work unmistakably highlights the triumph of contemporary symbolism over the archetypal, yet preserving its universal value. His encounter with the fundamental values of culture, religion and classical art is facilitated through the vast library established by his father at their home in Olt county. A multi-talented artist with a strong humanistic orientation, Bălașa gradually made his name as a painter, filmmaker, and writer. He constructs his own magical and transcendental universe, with spiritual elements deeply rooted in his being. Sabin Bălașa explores themes from universal legends and mythology and often sketches out subjects such as life and death, childhood and youth, or the hope of rebirth. In his creations, art is perceived as an eternal dream - not so much of the artist but of all mankind. He stated that art for him is "a supreme exercise of his own freedom, a great capacity to love". Bălașa's painting presents itself as a continuous dissemination over time. The cosmos, marine world, desert or mountains are only a small part of the infinite universe in which the artist carefully places his fabulous beings. Blue, his preferred colour since the beginning, in his vision, "is the farthest light, is the immensity where all colours and forms unravel and reborn, it is truth, ideal, eternity". Bălașa's blue imparts a sense of eternity to his art. His color palette becomes a spiritual matrix of the Romanian people, having its roots in Eminescu's lyricism and the myth of Miorita. In this artwork, the electrifying blue gradually fades in intensity, blending with the waves of the sea. The artist encrypts visual metaphors through a series of archetypal symbols that he translates into contemporary allegories. The creatures imagined by Bălașa represent a blend between the fabulous figure of the unicorn and the mythical image of the centaur. They evolve to the status of symbols of heroism and virtue in relation to other characters and the entire ensemble of the work. In Bălașa's work, the animal enhances the fabulous meaning of painted metaphors. The forefront of the artwork presents a protagonist detached from the realm of fantasy, sketched in a firm posture, seemingly watching over the marine expanse. The artist who managed to populate the sky with human beings builds his own plastic semantics with which he paints metaphors with poetic resonances.

References

DEAC, Mircea, "Sabin Bălașa", Meridiane Publishing House, Bucharest, 1984. BĂLAȘA, Tudor, "Sabin Bălașa", Official Monitor Publishing House, Bucharest, 2013.

Dimensions

width 33 cm, height 33 cm

Description

oil on canvas, signed and dated bottom left, in brown, "Sabin Bălașa, (19)82"

Dating

1982

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