A Child of Freedom - Luxury Splash of Art

Art stopped. Too afraid to question the party line, to risk imprisonment, many artists fled. They simply feared the soul-piercing pounding on the door, the shudder-inducing knock of the Securitate. Fear flourished under the brutal dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Communist satellite Romania. Amid such a foreboding atmosphere of spying and capricious imprisonment, art languished, risk-taking experimentalism died. Art is strong, but threatened by political sloganeering and strong-armed police– true creativity was consigned to the darkest shadows. Romania’s once vibrant intellectual and cultural centers resembled what Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin said of Soviet-controlled Petrograd, “a city of icebergs, mammoths, and wasteland…where cavemen, swathed in hides and blankets, retreat from cave to cave.”Under Ceaușescu, who seized power in 1965, totalitarianism forced the country’s artists to submit to censorship, to make “official art,” or to face imprisonment. The worst of Ceaușescu’s iron-handed rule is symbolized in his 1971 “July Theses.” The year artist Irinel Georgescu was born.

As Georgescu emphasizes, “We were afraid to express ourselves but this fear was related to the conversations one to another. We always had great artists…we were forced to increase the level of creativity…to survive the times…greatly reduced personal freedom but it never reduced the spirit (of the artist)…”That spirit now throbs far more openly, more universally and passionately in Romania. Artist-run spaces like Atelier 030202, cultural space Galateca Gallery, the contemporary Aiurart gallery, are flourishing. Georgescu, a child of a repressive era, is now adding her resonant and imaginatively provocative voice to an inspired chorus–to a growing anthem celebrating freedom.

After her father Demostene died suddenly three years ago, Georgescu, 49, a senior pharmacist in Botosani, Romania (with an MBA in Business Administration at Hult London – Campus ), kept asking herself “why, why, why?” Disconsolate, and close to losing all hope, she found art, the creative process–a new commitment and energy that have helped her find moments of equilibrium, allowed her “to move forward.” Totally self-taught, a participant at 4 group exhibitions in Bucharest, an on-line show in Haifa, Israel, and featured at the European Art Museum from Denmark, she’s quickly attracting international attention.

LSA visited with Georgescu in her studio, a living room in her mother’s apartment filled with provocative Wings of Angel paintings, and other deeply-emotional works. She’s surrounded by acrylics, along with rulers she uses to create different shapes and to spread thick layers of paint on her boldly-defined women (all without eyes). At times gloomy, at others positive and joyful, she sat in her father’s armchair, obviously finding emotional comfort there, recounting the journey that began with a friend giving her a canvas and easel three years ago.

LSA: You started painting right after your father’s stroke and death. How important was it to find that creative outlet?

IG: My father and I were very close. We had a deep, deep connection. Once he died I had to put myself together even as I was in great pain. I could never think of not having him, never prepared for death. But I started to draw, to sketch, lots of dots. I bought acrylics, and from that moment on, I kept painting and painting. It keeps me from crying…I am okay…painting is now my passion.

LSA: What do you want your paintings to express?

IG: I want people to find their own meanings, their own feelings, in my work. I want a bit of mystery, sure, but my soul is in these paintings. Art has allowed me to really understand what I felt after my father’s death, who I am and who I am becoming.

LSA: Your very large painting Hidden Feelings, a strong, towering woman seems to be in that work, a dominating woman in black with angel colors above her head

IG: My family is an angel for me. I was very upset when I painted it…I don’t know when I will stop (grieving).

LSA: Is that why you feature women without eyes in your paintings?

IG: Is it mandatory to have eyes? Can’t I express emotions without eyes? Maybe one day.

LSA: Working in a pharmacy, supervising a team of nine pharmacists, constantly solving problems, does that complicate your art, sadden you especially now during the Pandemic?

IG: There are so many problems today. We see about 100-200 people a day. I must have patience. Everything is so new, so rapidly changing. Everything is so difficult.

LSA: Face Up, the woman in that painting is very angular, Picasso-like, more animated.

IG: I wanted to express more hope, to really move forward, to show some liberation from pain, new strength.

LSA: Women, alone, trying to get stronger, that seems like a uniting theme in your work

IG: I am alone. I have my son but he is at school. Quiet Relief (a deeply-emotional painting showing two figures hugging) expresses my feelings for him…I miss him a lot. I have had sadness, but he is hope, a glow, light. If I had my son here I would give him a big hug. This painting creates a moment of silence…a lot can be expressed by silence.

LSA: Wouldn’t adding eyes to your paintings help you express even more emotions?

IG: Maybe one day I will add eyes. Not now. I don’t want to explain this not having eyes, not now.

LSA: Even without eyes, La Belleza is fun, she’s sexy.

IG: She likes to live. In this painting she is in motion, maybe a ballerina welcoming life. It shows I am not stuck in loss. She’s very alive.

LSA: A Simple Miracle, Life Goes On, Symphony, these works seem far more whimsical than Hidden Feelings. They are a more joyful Irinel.

IG: I had nothing to lose once my father passed away.I started over and found a better way. Paintings, this new creativity helped me through my worse days, and continues to inspire me. I am a strong person with new motivation. I am greatly progressing, moving ahead.