Eve Painting

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 mystery of their own making: to become intelligible would be to betray their inner dynamic.Dana Altman, Westwood Gallery, New York