Ediorials - Interview with Codrin Mircea

Tell us a few words about the beginning of your artistic career.
Being a part of a family of artists, my father, as well as two of my uncles being artists, I had contact with "beauty" from a small age. I think the first drawings, paintings I made were at about 3-4 years of age. I'm glad that, a few months ago, I found an ink drawing that represented the sculpted furniture from the living room from when I was about 5-6 years old. It's probably been since then that I have been attracted to the design part.
What teachers focused / supported you?
I had the privilege to study next to great masters, of graphics, as well as painting, Dan Hatmanu, Dragoș Pătrașcu , Dimitrie Gavrilean , Bartos Jeno , Miron Agafiței.

Why painting and nothing else?
I don't think painting prevails in front of graphics, for me, both are equally important and generous in what they can offer as plastic expression. Studying graphics, in high school, but also painting at university, I don't think I'll abandon any of the two techniques.
What style do you think suits you the most?
I think expressionism, fauvism, and abstract are the ones I resonate with the most and in which I fit the best. But I like to experiment, always, actually, this is how I think you evolve

Is there an artist or an artistic trend that influenced you in your art?
I can't really say who influenced me, but I can list some of the masters for which I have a great admiration, classics, but also contemporary: Rembrandt, Hieronimus Bosh, Durer, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Vasile Grigore, Pallady, Tonitza, Ciucurencu, Petrascu, Parizescu, Iser, Dan Hatmanu, Baba, Ghenie, Ecaterina Vrana. Regarding the style, some include me in a trend less known in Europe: "bad painting".
What is your favorite theme?
The portrait, mainly. I think that the human figure is the enigma of the one carrying it. If you know how to "decipher " it, you'll learn more about that person, the eyes, the mouth, the ears, the shape of the head, the proportions between them, like lines that form the whole, are actually a secret book of that being. I interpret portraits in a realist manner, as well as in an abstract one. Sometimes, it also depends on what the client wants as well. With the abstract ones, I can "play" more freely and I can move further away from the real physical features, and with the realist ones, to render what I think about that person, I create the ambient in which the portrait is being profiled, in such a way as to suggest certain unseen features of the person. I also help myself a lot through the colors I use. Even if the portrait is in realist lines, the colors that fill the surface may vary from red to orange, to blue, light blue, grey...

What inspires you the most?
People and their happenings.

Do you use more painting techniques or are you true to only one?
I try to diversify as much as possible, from collage, to mixt techniques, industrial colors, on various materials.
Does it happen to you to come back on a painting or do you go through to the end with a theme set from the beginning?
It depends from case to case, I don't think there's an exact network, it depends on how I feel.
What do you think about Romanian contemporary art and about the young artists?
We have young artists full of ideas, artistic substance, messages and I am very glad that after a "stagnant" period of contemporary art, it revived itself and it exists on the walls of big galleries and modern museums in the country, but also in the world.
Do you think one can live from art nowadays?
With a lot of consistency and a little luck, one can live at least decently.
What do you think about the fact that some painters prefer to cover "in fashion" trends and don't go their own way?
I cannot judge the activity and searches of other colleagues. Each one choose his own way as he sees fit. In art, everything is relative, and finding your own from the first is either a big error, or a big luck.
Tell us a little about you most important exhibition. What are your plans for the future?
The first exhibition in Paris, at Gallery Artitude, in 2004 was for me, an unforgettable event. But I consider this exhibition, from November 2015 like the most important one for my whole activity up to now. Thank you Dana Art Gallery!