(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 7)
Serene pictures are displayed at the ground floor of the “Caminul Artei” gallery. Anca Maria Constantinescu sees nature as a calm force, restrained and sovereign. No disturbed waters, no tense lines. Just like the artist, the paintings are the expression of femininity, simple and in plain view. “These are landscapes dear to my soul, universal; they do not abide by national rules and bonding,” the artist said. If the grass is still and the skies are watery, it means that nothing stands in the way of the brush when it is dipped in oil colour or water colour. Does water meet the skies? It is only because watercolour is the best way to express the fascination of the colours interference. No matter how well the greens, reds, whites and blues combine, the accuracy is primordial. One might even speak of lack of complexity. The paintings are not naive, just candid. The houses with low roofs, lowered horizons, they all come from the power of dreams, from the continuous strife to escape the concrete. The universe that Anca Maria Constantinescu created is a world of ideas, clean and transparent. Even if space is not well defined, the painter is a real architect. The combination is a great one: in 1983 she received the Prize of the Architects Union. The 7 personal displays and the 5 collective ones never left Bucharest. Her paintings may go further than that.