For more information, view the artist's website: www.CelinaGrigore.com

Since 1988 to present, discerning art collectors have acquired one-of-a-kind artworks by Celina Grigore. The artist's large-scale hand-woven tapestries, oil and acrylic paintings, works on paper, commissioned illustrations can be found in private collections in: United States, Canada, Japan, Israel, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Romania.

Celina Grigore lives and works in the state of Colorado, United States.

PEN & INK. BLACK & WHITE.

Inspired by travels, journeys, flight, time, space and the coexistence of opposing forces, several cycles of pen & ink drawings have emerged lately from my studio, awaiting their unveiling to the public eye:

The Migration series
The Journeys & Generations series
The Relationships series

THE MIGRATION SERIES

Travelling is experiencing with intensity.

Beyond exploring, travelling is about acquiring a sense of place.

Beyond contemplating the flow of shapes in a landscape, I kneel to the ground, run my fingers through sand, dirt, grass. I focus on the silence. In that frame of mind and spirit I try to feel the life force within, a pulse.

Beyond entering and exiting a space, I accumulate visual information by observing key-characteristics from up-close and up-above. I make note of features from a variety of perspectives to the target-objects: from the growth pattern of a leaf to the structure of a village seen from atop a medieval tower, from the abstract erosions carved by time into a piece of stone to the striped vineyard patterns on the hills of a Tuscan landscape. Up-close characteristics generate texture. Up-above characteristics determine structure.

By the time I leave, I have an imprint of that place.

My studio work starts with translating that imprintan exaltation of the sensesinto a visual language. A new journey is about to begin.

The process of distilling emotion into formal elements generates a wave of idea-sketches. Key elements start defining an essence of space. Communicating to the viewer a sense of space is not done by means of expected spacial relationships as much as it is done by means of emotional association and symbolic interconnections.

CREATING A METAPHOR

The Bird is a symbol of complete freedom, that enables me to rise above the existential condition of having been born and raised in one part of the world and living an ocean away from it. Travelling makes it possible to detach myself from being physically or emotionally tied down to any one place. It is a way of freeing the soul. It is a way of not living your life part by fate, part by choice, but rather being ALIVE by gaining vision through expanded knowledge and newly unfolded possibilities.

The metaphorical relationship between The Bird and elements of a place determine the composition. In turn, compositional arrangements indicate a trajectory for the viewers eye to follow. That trajectory will engage the viewer into discovering a rhythmic beat beyond the allusive, the accidental, the perceived.

When my heart pounds with excitement throughout the creative process, it is a reward. If I ignite an emotion into someone elses heart, it is a revelation! A new connection is about to emerge. … Read More