Master of the Waters (2017)

"Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship."
- Omar N. Bradley

Exceeding the confines of a vast canvas through its spectacular assault of unrestrained expression and brilliant color, Master Of The Waters by Gheorghe Virtosu encapsulates the full force of the artist’s abstract vernacular. Unlike many of the author’s pieces with static composition, where all forms are centered and don’t reach beyond the borders of the canvas, this one has an ‘open structure’. The dense knot of fluid shapes is raising up from the heavy bottom of the oil painting composition, done in the untypical for Gheorghe ‘bricks’ of paint, and goes beyond the format of the piece. It evokes the associations with the feeling of the eternal space when you observe ocean or sea.

Having a biography full of dramatic and difficult situations, Gheorghe Virtosu doesn’t try to reject and forget it – he courageously faces his inner challenges and sublimates the life experience into aesthetic form.

"The challenge of this art is to evolve an expansive landscape that brings the viewer, idea, artist, and experience together. At once it is chaos, and at the same time a simple embrace of the loss of boundaries at the portal to new understanding." - G. Virtosu.

The marine thematic can be traced in many other details of the abstract painting, like the contrast of rectangular and curvy forms. It resembles the contrast between the permanence of ground and permanent changeability of water. Moreover, in some of the cultures square is the symbol of the Earth element. Water is ‘represented’ (for sure, if to accept abstract art can represent anything at all) with the greyish-blue mass of the background, crossed with the flow of orange, purple, red, bright-blue figures.

Doubtlessly, abstract art is never about depicting anything – it is ultimately opened to the interpretations and finding your personal connotations. And yet, looking at the abstract painting one can easily imagine himself or herself witnessing the transition from one force of nature, the departure for the journey the artist invites the viewers to join. And it’s up to us to decide, whether we accept that invitation or not.