Past, present and Future (2017)

In Past, Present and Future by Gheorghe Virtosu the abstract art master conveys the sense of drama and action through the complex and vibrant canvas texture, done with gestural, loose brushwork and intensive palette. Its abstract painting central figure is a dark, abstract, bulbous, hourglass figure with a subdued texture of rough brushstrokes. A curved line gently but energetically glides into and out of this figure, forming a graceful set of narrow shapes. This line is in fact invisible, but is seen on the basis of the colors (two shades of grey and every color of the rainbow except green) that fill the shapes formed by where the line intersects the hourglass figure and itself.

Looking at Virtosu’s painting, completed in 2017, we first glance an incredibly busy and complex arrangement of forms. The response to what we see is formed by a lifetime of knowledge and experience and the culture and time in which we live. Exceeding the confines of a vast canvas through its spectacular assault of unrestrained expression and brilliant color, Past, Present and Future from 2017 encapsulates the full force of Virtosu’s abstract vernacular.

Although the hourglass is asymmetrical, it is roughly divided into quarters: the line bisects the abstract painting figure perpendicular to the neck of the hourglass. Each quarter of the hourglass is then occupied by the only representational images in the painting, namely a different disconnected body part in each quarter. The upper right quarter has detailed image of a half-opened eye; the upper left has an orange handprint, the bottom left has a dark footprint on a bright yellow dot, and the bottom left has a red semicircle which may represent a smile.

"Freedom from boundaries opens possibility in the form of the medium and the breadth of the artist to reveal wholly new ways of seeing. The truth in the revelation creates an opportunity to shape the colors of paint in an exercise that is not only the experience of art, but life." - G. Virtosu.

The background of Past, Present, and Future is composed of broad brushstrokes each of which has different shades of color, predominantly a mahogany color, with streaks of other colors such as white, grey, and purple and is also distinctive in that its brushstrokes go in all directions, which evokes a vibrant but chaotic mood, this being both, the wealth and the power of abstract art.